Music Album Review: 'The King's Singers: Great American Songbook'

(C) 2013 Signum Classics Records

One of the (many) benefits of being an Amazon Prime member is that, in addition to getting free shipping on most of my Amazon orders, I also have access to Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Prime Music, two streaming services that allow me to watch or listen to many movies, Amazon Original Television shows (such as Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan), and a wide selection of music albums, free of charge. Obviously, not everything on Amazon's video or music catalog is offered gratis, but I've been lucky enough to add some really cool albums to my Amazon Music queue thanks to my $119-a-year Prime membership.

One of my more recent musical discoveries is Signum Classics' 2013 2-disc set The King's Singers: Great American Songbook, a 2-disc, 25-track collection of songs written between the 1920s and early 1960s by songwriters such as Cole Porter, George & Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler, Mack Gordon & Harry Warren, Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart, and Charles Trent & Jack Lawrence.

Released on September 2, 2013, after a two-year period of planning and preparation, the six-member ensemble comprised by Christopher Bruerton, Christoper Gabbitas, Jonathan Howard, Julian Gregory, Patrick Dunachie, and Timothy Wayne-Wright's Great American Songbook is a love letter to songs that have stood the test of time.

Per the project description of The King's Singers: Great American Songbook in the Signum Classics website:

Around the time the King's Singers were starting up, one of the most productive periods in song-writing in history was coming to a close in America. Starting with composers such as Gershwin, Berlin, and Porter in the 1920s and continuing through the early 1960s, a body of work slowly built up that unofficially gained the title "The Great American Songbook." Many of the songs were written for musicals but stand proudly on their own merits, such is the quality of the melody-writing and the wittiness of the text. 

The album's "physical" version consists of two compact discs. CD One presents 17 songs performed in the King's Singers' usual a capella (no instrumental accompaniment) style.

1. The Best is Yet To Come
2. Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered
3. Let's Misbehave
4. Night and Day
5. Cry Me a River
6. I've Got the World on a String
7. When I Fall in Love
8. It's De-Lovely
9. Beyond the Sea
10. Cheek to Cheek
11. Begin the Beguine
12. At Last
13. I've Got You Under My Skin
14. The Lady is a Tramp
15. My Funny Valentine
16. I Won't Dance
17. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye

The second CD reprises eight of the songs from CD One, albeit with lush orchestral accompaniment performed by the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra (conducted by David Firman).

1. Let's Misbehave
2. Begin the Beguine
3. At Last
4. It's De-Lovely
5. The Lady is a Tramp
6. My Funny Valentine
7. I've Got the World on a String
8. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye

My Take

I first heard the King's Singers on WTMI-FM (93.1 on the FM dial), Miami's now-defunct classical music station almost 25 years ago. Ken Martin, the station's legendary program director, used their You Are the New Day to close WTMI's morning drive-time show starting in the late 1990s and (sadly) ending with the station's change of call letters/format (to WPMY/Dance) on December 31, 2001. I liked them, but for a host of reasons, I never bothered to see if they had released any recordings in the U.S.

That changed recently, though, and ever since I found a video of You Are a New Day in YouTube I have either purchased or added to my free streaming queue three of the King's Singers' albums: Gold, The Best of the King's Singers, and The King's Singers: Great American Songbook.

Of the three albums, Great American Songbook is unique for two reasons.

First, unlike most of the ensemble's albums, it sticks to one genre: jazz/pop standards from the eponymous Great American Songbook. The other two King's Singers albums I own/stream from Prime Music tend to cover a wide array of musical genres and historical periods; this one consists solely of show tunes or "older" pop songs that became standards over the decades.

Second, as I noted in the album description above, Great American Songbook's second CD reprises eight of the songs from the first disc, but this time the six singers are backed by a full symphony orchestra. The effect is rather startling, considering that the King's Singers usually perform with no accompaniment. But this approach is also effective and highly entertaining.

I'm a choral music aficionado from as far back as the early 1980s: I once owned a box set of LPs by Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians, and I used to listen to their renditions of Aura Lee, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, I Hear Music, and In the Still of the Night whenever I was stressed or sad.

I also was a singer in my elementary school and high school's choral groups and listening to the King's Singers usually transports me back to those days when I joined my voice with others to make beautiful music. We, too, sang songs from the Great American Songbook in our spring concerts, and I acquired a taste for this musical genre as a result of these performances.

The King's Singers: Great American Songbook is perfect for fans of Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Bobby Darin; many of the songs in the album were made famous by these three masters of the "standard," and the arrangements (by jazz composer/arranger Alexander L'Estrange)  are simply "delightful and de-lovely."  It's the perfect album for a romantic evening with a significant other or to destress after a long day at work.

Source: https://www.kingssingers.com/projects/#4