Patti LuPone's new CD: Grammy material

Patti LuPone at 54 Below, photo courtesy Karsten Moran, New York Times

The new live album "Patti LuPone Far Away Places," which was recorded during the two-time Tony winner's engagement at 54 Below last summer, was released Jan. 15 by Broadway Records. We received it yesterday.

My review is one word: PERFECTION!

Seven-time Grammy Award nominee Robert Sher (Gypsy, How to Succeed, Nice Work If You Can Get It) produced the album. LuPone earned acclaim for the concert evening that opened 54 Below in June. She returned for a second engagement in August and also played a special New Year's Eve performance there.

54 Below, Broadway's Nightclub, New York City

The live album also includes dialogue and stories that thread the evening together. The songs featured on the CD are:

"Gypsy In My Soul" (Clay A. Boland and Moe Jaffe)
"Nightlife" (Willie Nelson)
"Bilbao" (Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht)
"Far Away Places" (Alex Kramer and Joan Whitney)
"Black Market" (Frederick Hollander)
"Come to the Supermarket in Old Peking" (Cole Porter)
"I Wanna Be Around" (Johnny Mercer)
"Ah, the Sea is Blue" (Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht)
"I Cover the Waterfront" (Johnny Green and Edward Heyman)
"Pirate Jenny" (Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht)
"By the Sea" (Stephen Sondheim)
"I Regret Everything" (Bill Burnett and Marguerite Sarlin)
"Hymn to Love" (Edith Piaf and Marguerite Monnot)
"Travelin' Light" (Jimmy Mundy and Trummy Young)
"Nights on Broadway" (Bee Gees)
"September Song" (Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson)

The New York Times wrote, 

Ms. LuPone was born to sing the louche songs of Brecht and Weill, and the arrangements for a limber quintet — led by the pianist Joseph Thalken and featuring an accordion, banjo, violin, and guitar — lent the music a pungent Weimar flavor. Especially evocative were Mr. Thalken’s lilting 1930s hotel orchestra-style jazz arrangements of “I Cover the Waterfront” and “Travelin’ Light,” which Ms. LuPone invested with a wistful, torchy sensuality.

 

The show’s dramatic high point was a feral, scary interpretation of “Pirate Jenny,” the murderous revenge fantasy from “The Threepenny Opera,” delivered with a sneering glare that could turn you to stone. No one, save perhaps Maria Callas, has expressed more fury through a curled lip and an evil eye than Ms. LuPone, who can deploy the same features as easily for farce.

You can read The Times full review here. Know someone who loves Broadway or cabaret? Every song by Patti LuPone is a Valentine.