Haines His Way

Elmore, I was in London in my dreams last night, too, but unfortunately you weren't.  I was driving around with some nutcase girl who had hitchhiked (or something--can't really recall) with me.  In my dream, they had just changed to right-side-of-the-road driving in the UK, and it was wreaking havoc.  

I can tell you some "no-no's" for auditions (not necessarily songs--but these are all from personal experience):

1.  Do not bring a lyric sheet of a song no one has heard of, with not even chord changes, and expect the accompanist to "intuit" how it goes.  

2.  Do not bring 8x10 reductions of conductor's scores (more often than not handwritten, with "on the road" corrections scratched into them), especially encased in highly reflective "sheet protectors," and then expect the accompanist to magically sight-read the miniscule piano part from betwixt and between the glares.  

3.  Do not bring "Glitter and Be Gay" and cut it merciliessly to about 30 seconds with absolutely no sense to your edits, and then, approximately a nanosecond before you begin singing, turn to the accompanist and say, "Oh, I forgot--can you transpose this down a third?"  

I'll think of more later, I'm sure I will.  

In JRB land, 2 songs that have worked well for the many singers I've done "cattle call" auditions with:

Climbing Uphill from Last 5 Years
The Old Red Hills of Home from Parade

In JRB land, 1 song that is done way too much at auditions IMHO:

Stars and the Moon from Songs for a New World

Pentimento is also a CD by Jessica Molasky, who is married to John Pizzarelli.  So, here's the Pentimento Page Four Dance!!

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PENTIMENTO is also a great memoir by Lillian Hellman

LOL, Elmore.  

And of course in synchronicity land, Jessica sang "Stars and the Moon," co-starring with my close personal friend Brooks Ashmanskas.  

Never mind the why and wherefore.

I did PINAFORE in undergraduate school.

I wore a pinafore in elementary school

Did someone already mention that Pentimento is the name of the now discredited Lillian Hellman piece that was the source for the film Julia.  There was just a great op-ed piece in the paper the other day about it, with reference to the James Frey controversy, with the great quote from someone (can't remember, brain death--the one who was the other character in the Hamlisch show a few years ago about Hellman) saying "Every word in that book is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."

The quote is Mary McCarthy's.  Actually, "Julia" is one of the segments in PENTIMENTO.

Did anybody else see Harrick Connick Jr and Kelli O'Hara on the Today show this morning?

Apparently the clip is online (click on the yellow Harry Connick video button):
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/


I saw it this morning and thought it was really bad.  Apparently they don't sing it this way in the show (thank goodness). But I definitely think they should have sang it the way they sing it in the show!

I did PINAFORE in undergraduate school.

I wore a pinafore in elementary school

and Benjamin Kritzer looked under girls pinafores when he was in elementary school  

I wore a pinafore in elementary school

I went to elementary school.

JULIA has just arrived at my desk.  I recall being quite taken by the two actresses who played the younger Lillian and Julia.  Lisa Pelikan went on to do some stage work and has had a steady if not completely stellar television career.  Susan Jones went on to play such roles as Slave Girl #2, Bald Subhumanoid and Alley Rape Victim.  Such is the fortunes of show biz, I guess.

I spent the afternoon with several fine shows and a film. First up was last night's CSI: MIAMI. Not as dramatic as I was expecting nor as dramatic as was described in this week's TV GUIDE.

Finished up the afternoon with a couple more CSI eipsodes from the season five DVD set. Very entertaining.

We must of course have photos of the Petula Clark soiree!