Search - Robert Clary, Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern :: Robert Clary Sings Ira Gershwin And Jerome Kern

Style Defined

Josef Johns | Rochester, New York United States | 01/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I ordered this album to satisfy my curiosity about what Robert Clary was getting up to forty-six years after bursting onto the scene in New Faces of 1952. He was on the radio and television programmes of my childhood, singing novelty songs like Lucky Pierre , and I'm In Love With Miss Logan. Apart frrom these, he had in fact a very sophisticated repertoire ,as evidenced in his albums of 1955 and 1956--now available on compact disc.(Meet Robert Clary).

This particular album,recorded in 1998 with the John Rodby Trio, was a revelation. Mr Clary has lost nothing in the way of vigor and style, his phrasing is marvelous, the choice of songs splendid and slightly unpredictable. Who would have given another thought, for example, to that deliberately over-the-top number (as performed by Judy Garland in A Star Is Born ) entitled Someone At Last? It was written as satire, but Mr Clary performs it as a wistful lovesong. The piano accompaniment by John Rodbury, on this and the other tunes, is smart, lilting, and sexy. Then again Mr Clary, bless him, delivers all songs with verses intact; and some of those verses are obscure alternatives to those more commonly performed. It is,needless to say, a compliment to the discerning listener.

If you wondered how, beyond the score for" Cover Girl", Kern and Ira Gershwin are linked, there is a medley of 'Long Ago and Far Away/All the Things You Are' that gracefully straddles the issue and in a sense divides the songwriters around half- way down the list. Twenty terrific tunes in brilliant settings combined with Mr Clary's perennial insouciance--who could ask for anything more?"

He's a singer

guy richardson | 08/17/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Most Americans know Clary as the funny little Frenchman on "Hogan's Heroes." What they don't know is that singing is what kept him alive in Nazi death camps, and that he starred on Broadway in "New Faces of 1952." Clary brings a Gallic touch -- he still has a French accent -- and a B'way approach to some of America's best composers."