Perry Beekman - So In Love: Perry Beekman Sings And Plays Cole Porter (2013)

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Perry Beekman - So In Love: Perry Beekman Sings And Plays Cole Porter (2013)

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Perry Beekman plays guitar and sings, the former in the old Green / Ellis / Kessel vein, the latter as a combo of Barry Manilow, Peter Allen, and what it would sound like if Kyle McLauchlan were a vocalist. In So in Love, he formulated a trio format to keep things simple but swingin' and, in the instrumental aspects, succeeded very nicely, but, hoo boy!, when it comes to talents as a vocalist, the disc drives itself as a community college recitation presented in the secondary theater, not the main stage. Beekman plays a very clean axe bridging France's hot jazz inclinations with the American bop stringbenders just cited, and had this CD been purely instrumental, this would be a completely different review, but his voice is sufficiently unpolished, much too straight, uninflected, and more than a little Boy Scouty.

Miss Otis Regrets, one of the truly classic American tragedian compositions (a whole film could be made from the track), is perhaps the most vivid illustration of Beekman's defects as a singer: too Manilowesque (which, to some, will be a virtue, I guess). He starts an intro with promise but, as the band kicks in, the atmosphere becomes mellifluously carnivalesque, way too uptone, and diametrically opposed to everything the song is about. On the other hand, check out the instrumentals—My Heart Belongs to Daddy and Always True to You in my Fashion—as well as the half-instrumental In the Still of the Night and it's readily seen where his true virtues lie. And, on that last song, the same complaints arise again…and again…and again as the disc proceeds. Perry Beekman needs to keep that finessey-fingers part of himself employed and fire the vocalist. THAT would be a CD I'd be VERY interested in. (Review by Mark S. Tucker)