Fly Me to the Moon

“Fly me to the moon” went the words in the days when the command was still a metaphor and the space program only a possibility. The year 1954 brought this song into epidemic popularity in its most famous version by Frank Sinatra.     

If, by the way, you want to hear the whole song sung by the master, tap into YouTube.com. I count myself among the latecomers to this often fabulous web site: for this column, it helped me to hear and see some singers who were celebrated in the past and still loved now.

The Fly Me song has an honored place in what has come to be called “The Great American Songbook.” This catch-all term includes different types of popular music written in the four decades beginning with 1920 and ending with the Beatles in the middle 1960s.

This music has such variety and quality that it will never die. Those of my age peers who are addicted to show tunes, jazz, and other stuff can be assured of its continuing vitality. It rates as a distinctive cultural achievement for which America can justifiably feel proud.

Last week my pleasure in the Songbook grew richer with a performance by the Boston Musical Theater. This group of two fine singers and a highly accomplished trio of instrumentalists is managed and directed by Newton resident Charlotte Kaufman, herself a musician, who founded the ensemble in 1976.

The performance took place in the Regattabar of the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. It was a reprise of their recent gig at Lexington’s National Heritage Museum. They perform at other Boston area sites and elsewhere. Information about the Theater can be readily obtained at (617) 327-2433 or at
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The roster of performers offered homage to the many greats whose first names evoke wonderful memories ─  Frank, Ella, Bing ─ and the underated but superb Bobby Darin.

The composers, cited by last names, included Gershwin, Weill, and Arlen. My favorite, Cole Porter, was not among them; he rates another occasion all to himself.

Cole reminds me of the very English Noël Coward, a similarly witty and somewhat effete composer whose music the American Repertory Theater recently featured in a rich and hilarious show. I saw it in the same week as the BMT performance, experiencing a healthy brew of twentieth-century music.

To hear this music is to recognize the importance of style. The BMT’s David Ripley, a base-baritone with a remarkable voice, is a master of mood, tempo, and the effortless empathy that evokes the great performers of our youth

Though Kurt Weill’s “Mack the Knife” does not immediately come to mind as an example of American music, it proved an ideal piece for Ripley. He sang it first in clear and credible German and then in English, all with an acute sense of its sinister rhythms.

Ripley’s fellow vocalist, the soprano Mara Bonde, for me ranks among the most charming of singers and full of talent as well. Early in the program, she captivated her audience with her rendition of “Beyond the Sea,” as Bobby Darin used to sing it in the 1950s.

She gave special relish to this piece by first singing it in French, in the yearning evocative style of its composer, Charles Trenet. Then, in a change of language, rhythm and outlook, she segued into the Darin style that many Americans remember.

Material from the Broadway theater did not loom large in the revue. Bonde, however, did sing “Hey There” from The Pajama Game. I would have preferred to hear Ripley sing that one because it was originally performed by the male lead, John Raitt, who made it the hit of the show.

However, I was delighted to hear Bonde “swing on a star,” as she performed the song made famous by Bing Crosby in the 1944 hit movie Going My Way. Bing played a young priest, and the great Barry Fitzgerald an old one; their take on the priesthood was light-hearted and droll, and they charmed many movie goers including me.

I’m not as sharply attuned to the great songbook as many readers will be. That’s because, during the heyday of the genre, I was pursuing reality in monastic seclusion. Gregorian chant and other classical forms comprised my musical diet, rather than the popular stuff that was entertaining so many friends outside the walls.

But I love listening to Songbook music well performed. And I must confess that I enjoy my own clandestine piano playing, usually accomplished when no one else is at home and at low volume for fear of putting the neighbors at esthetic risk. My childhood piano lessons ─ which were certainly not my idea ─ continue to produce a paradoxical pleasure.

My addiction to opera and other classical music continues to reign supreme in my enjoyment of musical art. Fortunately, however, you can relish both the pop and classical genres; in fact, I would feel deprived not to have access to both. They count as one of the graces of later life.

Richard Griffin