cosmic art

In all brouhaha of this week I forgot to mention that Sheldon had bought me a ticket to see the incredible Miss Barbara Cook at the Royal Conservatory. The newly built and beautiful Koerner Hall was packed to the gills. This was exactly what she wore but the wonderful accompaniment was piano, bass and percussion not a full orchestra.

When she walked on, lit by a silver blue spot, my skin tingled from head to butt crack.  She just glowed with soul . The face of Cunegonde and Marian the Librarian was there as fresh as it ever was... and .we're talking 54 years. She has lost a couple of top notes but her voice was still like a silver stream. And she was so so funny. Her 82 years have given her the right and the freedom to say what she thinks.

She opened with "There's A Rainbow Round My Shoulder"..... a woman a couple of seats from me turned to her companion and said "Oh, I just LOVE her!" with delighted surprise. Then "Wonderful Guy" from South Pacific, a glorious version of Gershwin's "Nashville Nightingale", "I Got Lost In His Arms" and loads more.

 She admitted that rarely if ever does she sing any Porter.. but her version of "Under My Skin" was sublime with a piano underscoring that sounded like water in a river. She did "Where or When" with a cello line beneath that sent me to the moon and back!

She is a Youtube addict and purloined one number from a claymation short of Ethel Merman doing "Chicken Tonight, Feathers Tomorrow" and told us she has collected a few more bizarre song titles like "When You Wrapped My Lunch in a Roadmap I knew it was Goodbye" and  "If My Nose was Running Money I'd Blow It All On You".  She admitted to a two year obsession with a married singer and fell just short of mentioning his name.  Sheldon worked out who!!! .. but if she didn't want to name him then so be it.

Mabel Mercer, who she first encountered in cabaret in 1949, was the most important influence on her. And like Mercer she now seems to fall into the material and let it become one with her both musically and in spirit. She said, "I'm willing to go where the writer wants me to go"..then devastated us all with an Alec Wiilder song called, "Goodbye, John" and a haunting medley of "No One is Alone", "Lost in the Stars" and "No More". Shen followed "Halellujah ,I Just Love Him So" with her closer,"Here's to Life" which we and she all knew is now in its final years. And it was bitter sweet to see her walk into the wings and to think "I  have a feeling I won't see her perfom live again."  Mind you I thought that of Dame Edna four shows ago!

We all rose in a real , not obligatory, ovation. And she returned for one more number. Unamplified.
Her voice was so powerful and the acoustics so perfect I remember thinking that I would have loved to have heard her unmiked all night.

That very morning I had been singing a phrase that was running wild in my head. Just 9 notes. But over and over. And I in fact heard myself saying, "Oh shut up, Taylor" probably just before Sheldon did.

That tune was Miss Cook's encore, "We'll Be Together Again"    So those 9 notes came back with me for the subway ride home.