Cheryl Bentyne Presents Sondheim Concert This Monday At Birdland
By: Julie Musbach Mar. 01, 2018
The Broadway at Birdland concert series is proud to announce that veteran jazz vocalist Cheryl Bentyne will perform on the iconic stage Monday, March 5 at 7pm. The concert will celebrate the singer's new CD, reARRANGEMENTS OF SHADOWS, a tribute to Stephen Sondheim.
On reARRANGEMENTS OF SHADOWS, vocalist Cheryl Bentyne re-imagines songs by the iconic Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim. She will be accompanied by Yaron Gershovsky on piano, Matt Aronoff on bass, Clint de Ganon on drums and Aaron Weinstein on violin. Widely known for her 38 years as part of the renowned vocal group The Manhattan Transfer, Bentyne is also a solo performer with over a dozen CDs under her own name as well as several collaborative projects with other singers and instrumentalists.
Music from Broadway shows has been a staple of the jazz repertoire since the 1920s. Even as jazz has evolved over the years, harmonically rich and lyrically sophisticated show tunes have provided an abundant supply of material for jazz singers of all stripes. Although Sondheim is generally considered the greatest contemporary Broadway composer, his songs are mostly written as plot points within the context of a show. That makes them very difficult to sing in other settings, and consequently, many jazz singers have not embraced a large part of his oeuvre. It takes an artist of Bentyne's stature to create her own fully realized, personal context from Sondheim's often difficult lyrics. According to Bentyne, "Sondheim doesn't just write song lyrics. He writes monologues. He writes how people really speak, and I wanted my renditions to sound as natural as Sondheim meant them to be. If you overwork a song, every note starts sounding predictable, and you wind up with a pop album. Spontaneity was an important part of the recording process."
reARRANGEMENTS OF SHADOWS
Monday, March 5 at 7pm
Birdland, 315 West 44 Street, NYC
$30 cover, $10 food/drink minimum per person
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