Danny Bacher
Still Happy
(Whaling City Sound)
November 4, 2018
Reviewed by Alix Cohen for Cabaret Scenes
He’s not kidding. Danny Bacher’s new CD is infectiously upbeat, a tonic in these times of an infuriating present and a questionable future. Instrumentation is limber and suave, the vocals have charm.
A swooney samba “Laughing at Life” (Bob Todd/Cornell Todd/Charles F. Kenny/Nick A. Kenny) is mellow, nonchalant. At the least it stimulates a chair dance, at best getting you up on your feet. Sax and trumpet are sinuous. A swingy denouement precedes an undulating out. (Picture hips.) In the same vein, “This Happy Madness” (Antônio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius De Moraes/Gene Lees) shushes in a bossa nova with an extended “s.” Phrases arc; arrangements are prettily executed.
Bacher’s own “In Spite of All This, I’m Still Happy” enumerates a series of irritating incidents through which the author perseveres.
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It’s a contemporary song with a hat-over-the-eyes insouciant feel.
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His “Joie de Vivre” conjures the Benny Goodman or Tommy Dorsey bandstand—dinner-jacketed musicians who stand up to solo.
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A jitterbug number with clarity and sass, it features emphatic horns and imaginative drums. Bacher may be the best male scatter in the business.
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Irving Berlin’s “Shakin’ the Blues Away” (remember Ann Miller?) is an easy, lyrical swing—like watching Fred Astaire in slow motion. A wah-wah muted trumpet sashays with the tenor sax, likely playing hooky. “Lucky to Be Me” (Adolph Green/Betty Comden/Leonard Bernstein) floats in on a croon. This is sway music, hands in pockets, eyes on the sky, with a punch-drunk, Cheshire-Cat grin.
Piano is meditative, Bacher’s soprano sax sighs, Bacher’s vocal is plush.
“(Getting Some) Fun Out of Life” (Joseph Burke/Edgar Leslie) surges with unaccustomed speed and scat that would astonish both Demosthenes (the Greek orator who put pebbles in his mouth to improve articulation) and Stephen Sondheim (whose songs often require astonishing breath and precise enunciation). Tenor saxophone stunt flies. I would’ve preferred the song taken down a notch.
Nor do I understand making Richard Whiting/Johnny Mercer’s iconic “Hooray for Hollywood” into a carnival samba which seems to go against everything it means.
While Bacher writes his own successful lyrics elsewhere, these updated ones, to me, cheapen a classic.
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“Lazy Afternoon” (Jerome Moross/John LaTouche) offers layers of musical chiffon through which the tune exhales and stretches. Piano strolls, bass whispers, the soprano sax is a drifting boat.
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Bacher virtually caresses the lyrics. “Cloudy/Nuages” (Bix Biederbecke/Django Reinhardt) ends the CD with dreamy finesse and half-closed eyes.
Musicians: Bacher (vocals, soprano sax); Allen Farnham (piano); Dean Johnson (bass); Alvester Garnett (drums); Harry Allen (tenor sax); Charles Caranicas (trumpet/flugelhorn); and Rolando Morales-Matos (percussion).
