RICHARD RODNEY BENNETT (b. 1936) and other composers

 

Words & Music

 

It might as well be spring

Don’t sleep in the subway  

Get rid of Monday

Someone to watch over me

Angel eyes

Spring can really hang you up the most

Let me down easy

I won’t dance

Killing time

How long has this been going on?

On second thought

Early to bed

Wake up, chillun’ wake up

Goodbye for now

Words and Music

Richard Rodney Bennett

 

Music of broad appeal

Released during his 70th birthday year.

Only available arrangements by Rodney Bennett, including favourites such as Someone to watch over me, and How long has this been going on?

The listener will be moved by the lyric and the plaintive quality of Richard’s voice.

Unique and intimate recording for Chandos, featuring our acclaimed sound.

A collection of varied, moving and highly enjoyable songs.

 

Among present-day musicians, there can be few more versatile than Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: composing for concerts and films, playing the piano in contemporary music and in jazz idioms as well as singing and playing classic show tunes in cabaret. In fact he ranks among the very best of the singer-pianists performing today and certainly earned his knighthood by the Queen for services to music.

 

Having regularly performed cabaret in the UK and US, normally accompanied by BBC Radio 3 Jazz Singer of the year, Claire Martin this is the first disc of his cabaret performances as a solo artist, performing his own arrangements. The songs are beautifully sung and played, and with the recordings intimate quality really allows the songs to breathe. This is an inventive and charming selection of material from the golden age of American popular song, in which the titles reflect the vast knowledge and influence on Richard Rodney Bennett.

 

Claire Martin wrote on Rodney Bennett: “He sings beautifully and he plays great piano, he has such a beautiful touch and really cool ideas. Plus he knows loads of great quirky songs…”

 

What was important was to acknowledge that the finely crafted marriage of words and music that flourished in the thirties and forties – indeed the golden age of American popular song – simply aren’t period pieces, not when a Richard Rodney Bennett is around to pick them up, dust them off and allow their magic to start all over again.

Glasgow Herald

 

Chandos CHAN10411