Sean Harkness & Marcus Simeone
with Lina Koutrakos
Blue
(Miranda Music)
March 19, 2018
Reviewed by Rob Lester for Cabaret Scenes
Blues have many hues in Blue, from dire, deep, dark (“Mood Indigo”) to brightness of “nothing but blue skies” in “I Can See Clearly Now” to, in an instrumental “My Favorite Things,” implied, imagined “blue satin sashes.” But it’s the satin sound of singer Marcus Simeone—high, heavenly, heartfelt—that embodies the richest shades of blue in what’s far and away his most satisfying CD. Sorrow and beauty co-exist as he co-stars with sublime guitarist (and sometime singer) Sean Harkness, with four welcome appearances by sultry-voiced Lina Koutrakos who directed the live cabaret show.
Poignant and potent, pain is palpable. Pity party? Perhaps, but positively moving. Mawkishness and morose melodrama are eschewed, with sufficient respite from lugubrious, gloomy tempi. Reined-in, focused Simeone, with simpatico Harkness the sole (and soulful) musician (with effective singing), it’s gratifyingly evident that the sage advice “Less is more” is embraced.
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Weepily wearing a broken heart on one’s sleeve in music interpretation is risky, but here, for personal reasons, it’s no acting job. Mourning and memories are from real life—and death. But, in strong Simeone solos, through the anguish comes miraculous Hope…
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to get away from the “Blue Side” to be “Skipping Under the Rainbow” (and you thought all cabaret singers just went “Over the Rainbow”?).
Some treatments of better-known selections surprise. Without “When Sunny Gets Blue”’s words present to dictate teariness, the guitarist lets his instrumental treatment flirt with fleetness. Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind” takes liberties, too: Simeone doesn’t begin with the first lines and omits the the last two.
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(Sorry, purists, but it works.) In Koutrakos’ hands, the often glibly tossed-off shrug of having a “Small Day Tomorrow” transforms; we glean a scene of wanting to avoid one more lonely, empty day due at sunrise.
There is beauty in this catharsis.
