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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-10
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REVIEWS, Page 82MUSICDelightful, De-Lovely
By MARTHA DUFFY
COMPOSER: Cole Porter
ALBUM: From This Moment On
LABEL: Smithsonian Collection of Recordings
THE BOTTOM LINE: He's the top.
Playboy, Idler, a Snob's Snob, Cole Porter lived the dream
life of the '30s, remote from the privations of the Depression.
But as he and his rich friends cruised the beauty spots of the
world, he was listening to the rhythms of their speech and of
the bands they danced to, transforming their fads and crazes
into often mordant social comment. And into 500 or so of the
best American songs ever written -- ballads, laments,
sophisticated melodies, impudent scatter, chatter, smatter
songs. The miracle of this four-CD set is that it makes a rich
sampling of those songs sound so fresh and persuades the
listener to hear the larky, witty words and the elegant
harmonies as if for the first time.
And the album is produced by -- can this be right? -- the
Smithsonian Institution? Aren't they the earnest scholars who
compile hours of field hollers and other historic folk music?
Yes, but in 1971 the Smithsonian began moving gradually into
mainstream pop and jazz, first by mail order and, since last
fall, in retail record stores. Because it is a nonprofit entity,
commercial labels grant it the rights to their classic and
vintage tracks. These plus the private collections unearthed by
the Smithsonian make for unequaled quality and
comprehensiveness.
Here the Porter treasures range from the composer's tart,
crisply enunciated delivery of Anything Goes to Gertrude
Lawrence's lascivious rendition of The Physician. Some choices
bow, gratifyingly, to the obvious. Ethel Merman trumpets Blow,
Gabriel, Blow; Fred Astaire croons Night and Day; and Mary
Martin purrs her way through My Heart Belongs to Daddy. But more
interesting are the unexpected matches and offbeat finds. Marion
Harris, a now forgotten star, strikes a provocative balance of
plaintive charm and rhythmic sophistication in a 1930 recording
of You Do Something to Me. For Miss Otis Regrets, Ethel Waters'
well-known version is bypassed in favor of one by blues singer
Alberta Hunter because, as album editor Dwight Blocker Bowers
notes, she gives this uniquely bitter nonsense song "Porter's
sassy spirit." So does this whole definitive set.