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Let's Face The Music!
Jelani Eddington at the 4/35 Berkeley Community Theatre Wurlitzer
Berkeley, California
April 29, 2004
Review by Alan Ashton, MSS Organ 1st, Dolgellau, Gwynedd, United Kingdom (as published in the May-July 2004 issue of Organ 1st Magazine). Reprinted with permission.
Jelani Eddington is an award winning American theatre pipe organist, and until now I have never had the chance to even hear, let alone review, any of his recordings. After
playing Let's Face The Music (RJE-1425), I find myself in complete agreement with all the glowing reports of
his earlier CDs. This superb and challenging programme of music is helped in no small way by the sounds of the 35-rank
Wurlitzer installed in the Berkeley Community Theatre, California.
Irving Berlin's Let's Face The Music And Dance brings back memories of Fred & Ginger in Follow The Fleet,
an overlong film about a couple of sailors on shore leave and their romantic pursuits of two girl singers. Although there are no
less than eight music numbers in the film, this one is a perennial favourite with organists, particularly as concert openers.
Leroy Anderson's Serenata is one of his most popular compositions, and Jelani enhances the Bolero rhythm by using the
Harmonic Flute. I watched one of my favourite Judy Garland films early in the New Year, and without doubt her performance of
The Boy Next Door is a highlight of Meet Me In St. Louis. To do it full justice Jelani has used some of
the finest solo voices of this installation.
Lyricist songwriter and cofounder of Capitol Records, Johnny Mercer, wrote the words for some most memorable songs of the 40's
and 50's, and many made their way into films and four gained him Academy Awards. One of these was Moon River, and it is this tune that
appears in a selection titled Five Fabulous Decades Of Johnny Mercer. Mercer collaborated with many other popular
composers including Hoagy Carmichael, Harry Warren, Harold Arlen, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Marvin Hamlisch and Richard Whiting. Thus
we are regaled in the next 18 minutes with Jeepers Creepers, Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive, Skylark, On The Atchison Topeka And The Santa Fe,
Satin Doll, Hooray For Hollywood, and Life Is What You Make It.
If you think by now you have heard all that the artist and organ have to offer then think again, because after Kitten On The Keys
comes the Overture From Candide composed by Leonard Bernstein. Of his five Broadway contributions to the musical
stage, the comedy operetta Candide, based on a novel by Voltaire and written in 1956 in collaboration with others, enjoyed only a brief initial
run, but it has a thrilling score held in high regard. The track is one of several highlights on this recording, and coming a close
runner is the 23-minute Showboat Symphonic Suite. What most people don't realise is that composer Jerome Kern had
the tendency to add and delete tunes from the original 1927 score, which in the first runs was a whopping four hours long. Jelani has,
to his credit, restored to their rightful place some tunes that never get played by organists: Cotton Blossom and The
Sports Of Old Chicago are but two of the lesser heard. They join the accepted standards including Bill, Can't Help
Lovin' Dat Man, and Make Believe. I doubt the Berkeley organ has ever sounded so symphonic.
One of those delightful tunes that we so rarely hear is Two Cigarettes In The Dark. Written by pianist, singer
and silent movie accompanist Lew Pollack, who later turned his attentions to sound films, writing the scores for Rebecca Of
Sunny Brook Farm and What Price Glory, the arrangement by Jelani is one of those that sends shivers up and down the spine.
The word gorgeous is a massive understatement.
The second film I ever screened in my days as a cinema projectionist was Cecil B. DeMille's Samson & Delilah, starring Victor
Mature and Hedy Lamar, and to this day I still have the 10" LP sound track recording by Victor Young. Listening to the Bacchanale from
Camille Saint-Saens' 19th century opera of the same name, it is obvious where Victor Young got his inspiration. If you are going to bring a CD to a dramatic
close, one that will urge people to seek out more recordings, then do it in style. This lively finale is one of the most dramatic orchestrations that
he could have chosen.
At just 30 years of age, and the youngest ever recipient of the Theatre Organist Of The Year Award back in 2001, I now have to embark upon
obtaining all his previous recordings, because not to do so would clearly represent a large void in my collection. A 12-page booklet with photos,
copious sleeve notes and the organ specification, complete this, his eighth recording to date.
Two words. Buy It.
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