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Songs
Label: Naxos
Year: 2005
Released on LP: No
Released on CD: Yes
Tracks
1. All My Love
2. Strange Meadow Lark
3. The Things You Never Remember
4. So Lonely
5. Don't Forget Me
6. There'll Be No Tomorrow
7. The Time of Our Madness
8. Tao
9. Final Curve / Search
10. Dream Dust / Hold Fast to Dreams
11. Hold Fast to Dreams
12.The Dream Keeper
13. Day after Day
14. Once When I Was Very Young
Personnel
Dave Brubeck (piano)Cliff Jackson (piano)
John De Haan (tenor)
Jane Giering-De Haan (Soprano)
Notes
1. Recorded Jan 9, 2004 - Jan 11, 2004 ; released May 2005.
2. Recorded at Frost School of Music, Gusman Concert Hall, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL.
3. Released by Naxos as part of the "American Classics Series"
Reviews
All Music Guide – Review – copyright
John De Haan, a classically trained tenor, ambitiously tackles both jazz works and concert music written by the legendary Dave Brubeck. Brubeck, who has rarely accompanied vocalists on piano without a small group or an orchestra, is masterful with his backing of De Haan on the first seven selections, as are the pieces themselves. But De Haan fails to realize that an opera singer has to approach jazz vehicles from a different perspective, as a result, he often comes across sounding rather pompous, excessively using vibrato and consistently holding notes far too long. He drags down the normally lyrical "Strange Meadowlark" and makes a mess of "There'll Be No Tomorrow" (Brubeck's haunting tribute to Chopin), though the composer's introduction is breathtaking.
Brubeck was commissioned to set several poems by Langston Hughes to music, resulting in the extended work "Hold Fast to Dreams," which has yet to have been documented on CD. De Haan is clearly more at home performing this material, though Cliff Jackson's unexpressive accompaniment suggests that the pianist spent very little time rehearsing these unfamiliar works. Soprano Jane Giering-De Haan displays some of the same problems as her husband on the jazz tracks, absolutely butchering "Hold Fast to Dreams" and overdoing it in her duet with him of "The Dream Keeper." "Once When I Was Very Young," which began life as a poem by Michael Brubeck (the composer's second son), pales in comparison to the a cappella rendition by the Gregg Smith Singers heard on Brubeck's Music Masters CD Once When I Was Very Young.
Longtime fans of Dave Brubeck appreciate his gifts both as a composer and pianist in any setting, but these vocal interpretations by John De Haan hardly add an important chapter to Brubeck's legacy. If Kevin Mahogany had sung the jazz pieces and baritone Kevin Deas had performed the classical tracks with pianist John Salmon, it would have been a very different story.
Ken Dryden
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