Marni Nixon, a 1980s Grammy nominee for her recordings of music by
Arnold Schoenberg and
Aaron Copland, is known in the popular realm for her interpretations of the songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, and
Bernstein and
Sondheim as she substituted for the non-singing stars of the film adaptations of The King and I, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story in the 1950s and '60s. Those songwriters are somewhat younger than
Jerome Kern (although
Oscar Hammerstein II was a frequent
Kern collaborator before the onset of his partnership with
Richard Rodgers), but with her classical background,
Nixon may have more affinity for him than for them. Certainly, a soprano who has trod the boards of opera houses is unlikely to have trouble with the operetta songs in
Kern's repertoire, such as "You Are Love" from Show Boat. In fact, she might be expected to struggle more with the lyrical interpretation of the more vaudeville-oriented numbers such as the lusty "Let's Begin," but she turns convincingly saucy and rhythmic getting out such
Otto Harbach lines as "We have necked/Till I'm wrecked/Won't you tell me what you expect?" Working with pianist/arranger
Lincoln Mayorga, a string quartet, one reed, a harp, and a rhythm section, she makes the most of chamber arrangements of music more often heard with a full orchestra. And she and
Mayorga can be playful, too, notably in "Swing Time Medley," which combines three songs from the
Astaire-
Rogers film Swing Time, "Waltz in Swing Time," "A Fine Romance," and "Pick Yourself Up," by deftly shifting from one time signature to another. Such novel ideas lend variety to the set, but it is at its strongest in the singer's treatment of
Kern's great ballads "The Song Is You," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Long Ago and Far Away," and "They Didn't Believe Me." ~ William Ruhlmann