CD Review
Judi Connelli - Live In London
1. Where is it Written / The Way You Make Me Feel /Something’s Coming
2. At The Ballet 3. Frank Loesser Medley: I Believe In You / I’ll Know /
Standin’ On TheCorner / A secretary Is Not a Toy / Adelaide’s Lament /
Summertime Love / I’ve Never Been in Love Before / My Heart is So Full of You /
If I Were a Bell / Heart & Soul /No Two People / Once In Love With Amy /
A Woman in Love
4. Married / You Better Sit Down Kids / Stay With Me / Move On5. As Time Goes By 6. Buddy’s Eyes / Being Alive 7. A Terrific Band
8. Kiss Her Now / Time Heals Everything 9. I Don’t Want To Know
Produced by Colin Cattle Dress Circle DG CD 1
When finely developed artistry is combined with total lack of artifice, the result is the kind of emotionally stirring experience now awaiting those who secure a copy of this exciting album.
Earlier this year, Connelli made her London debut at the Talk of London, superbly supported by musical director Tom Helm at the piano. This album captures the thrilling voice, the breathtaking commitment to her material and the easy rapport which Judi Connelli brought to the capital.
Many of the songs reflect a common theme: a lack of satisfaction with the ways things are, or were, but an underlying belief in the prospect of effecting a change. Starting with two songs of uncertain longing replaced by new assurance from Yentl and ending this medley with ‘Something’s Coming’ sets the mood immediately and when Marvin Hamlisch’s ‘At the Ballet’ is given a strongly autobiographical delivery our acquaintance with what makes Judi tick is almost complete.
If Connelli is associated most closely with the sheer power of her rich, deep voice, her control of the upper register and pianissimo singing in ‘My Heart is So Full of You’ and ‘A Woman in Love’ add new dimensions to her art. The ‘Married’ medley is a superb combination of songs reflecting the hopes and despair which that state can engender; Ms Connelli’s delivery of Sonny Bono’s ‘You Better Sit Down Kids’ is a particularly fine example of how to deliver a tear-jerker, with love but without sentimentality; in short, without artifice.
Settling down to enjoy ‘As Time Goes By’ we’re all in for a major disappointment: it ain’t there! Listed on the sleeve, but not a peep on the disc. Perhaps we’ll have to
express our dissatisfaction with what’s missing in our lives and cling to an ardent hope that it will come to us in the end.The closing track ‘I Don’t Want to Know’ completes a cycle of songs about the
difference between what we have and what we want and a refusal to accept less than what our dreams promise.Most of Ms Connelli’s incidental repartee is omitted, together with the stunning ‘Fifty Percent’, (possibly because a studio version can be heard on her ‘On My Way to You’ album). To some extent, these omissions leave the CD listener with a slightly less clear picture than the artist ensures her audience see in the flesh. For those last pieces of the jigsaw, book your tickets as soon as you hear that Judi’s back in town.