Alison Fraser – Tennessee Williams: Words and Music (CD)

Description

Two-time Tony Award nominee Alison Fraser’s Tennessee Williams: Words and Music album merges songs featured in the works of the iconic playwright with select readings of his flavorful prose. The album, recorded in New Orleans with the rollicking band The Gentlemen Callers, combines theater and traditional jazz in an exciting new hybrid. Using country-western ballads, Mississippi blues, Latin love songs as well as classic standards, the album paints a striking new picture of a literary titan. 

 

Tennessee Williams: Words and Music features songs taken both from major plays of the Tennessee Williams cannon – such as A Streetcar Named Desire (the Harold Arlen standard “It’s Only A Paper Moon”) and This Property is Condemned (Gene Autry’s “You’re the Only Star”) – in addition to lesser-known later works like Clothes for a Summer Hotel (Nöel Coward’s “The Party’s Over Now”) and Something Cloudy, Something Clear (the Oscar-winning Hawaiian staple “Sweet Leilani”). Other highlights include the dramatic theatrical showstopper “St. Louis Blues” and “New San Antonio Rose,” which becomes a comedic tour de force thanks to Fraser’s distinctive yodel. The centerpiece is Fraser’s thrilling voice, at points warm and rustic, at others bold and powerful.

 

The album is a vibrant document of Alison’s one-woman show Only a Paper Moon: A Tennessee Williams Songbook, which premiered at The Tennessee Williams Festival in Williams’ birthplace Columbus, Mississippi. The show then won great acclaim at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. David Kaplan – noted Williams scholar, the show’s director, and curator of the Provincetown festival – compiled the songs and monologues from several Tennessee Williams plays, which together tell a compelling new story of their own.

 

1. If I Didn’t Care (Jack Lawrence) Vieux Carré

 

“Understand French?” A Streetcar Named Desire

 

2. It’s Only a Paper Moon (Harold Arlen / E. Y. Harburg / Billy Rose) A Streetcar Named Desire

 

3. “One Night’s Shelter” A Streetcar Named Desire

 

4. You’re the Only Star (In My Blue Heaven) (Gene Autry) This Property is Condemned

 

5. New San Antonio Rose (Bob Wills) Auto de Fé

 

“I live in a house where nobody knows my name” Auto de Fé

 

6. Yellow Dog Blues (W.C. Handy) Summer and Smoke

 

7. “Do You Remember Jean Harlow?” Ten Blocks on the Camino Real

 

8. Sweet Leilani (Harry Owens) Something Cloudy, Something Clear

 

9. Estrellita (Manuel Ponce) Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen

 

“I want to go away” Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen

 

10. Come le Rose (Adolfo Genise / Gaetano Lama) The Dog Enchanted by the Divine View

 

11. Sophisticated Lady (Duke Ellington / Irving Mills / Mitchell Parish) Clothes for a Summer Hotel

 

12. St. Louis Blues (W.C. Handy) Hello from Bertha

 

13. I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (John Kellette) A Portrait of a Madonna

 

“Sister Blanche is no Lily” A Streetcar Named Desire

 

14. The Party’s Over Now (Nöel Coward) Clothes for a Summer Hotel

 

15. “Thinner and Thinner” Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen

 

16. Bye Bye Blues (Fred Hamm /Dave Bennett / Bert Lown / Chauncey Gray) Vieux Carré

 

 

Produced by Alison Fraser & Allison Leyton-Brown

 

Musical Direction by Allison Leyton-Brown

Trombone & Ukulele: J. Walter Hawkes

Bass: James Singleton

Drums: Wayne Maureau

Saxophone: Jason Mingledorff

Trumpet & Cornet: Bobby Campo

Guitar: John Eubanks