American Popular Song Society 2024 GALA Honoring Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire
Linda Amiel Burns has tirelessly helmed The American Sheet Music Society – now The American Popular Song Society – for 40 years. This is the organization’s third annual Lifetime Achievement Award Gala. Tonight, members, artists, and devotees pack The Cutting Room to salute two of our best writers, both present and beaming.
Richard Eldridge Maltby, Jr (1937) met long time collaborator David Lee Shire (1937) as freshmen at Yale University. Both were sons of bandleaders. Maltby’s father was also the musical director for Ethel Merman, Shire’s had a society band.“I thought he was an Eastern theater snob, and he thought I was a jerk from Buffalo, but we were the only ones who could service each other,” Shire recalls. Respect evolved working together.
The pair wrote two musicals, Cyrano and Grand Tour mounted by the Yale Dramatic Association. Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince came down to see the new boys and Sondheim became a lifelong mentor. Maltby Jr. shared his love of crossword puzzles. Shire did some early work for him. The young men’s first Off Broadway production, 1961’s The Sap of Life, was produced at One Sheridan Square Theater. It flopped. Shire packed up and went to Los Angeles to score film and television.
In 1976, the composer returned resulting, a year later, in the successful revue Starting Here, Starting Now. (Grammy nomination for Best Cast Album.) Not men to count their laurel leaves, Maltby Jr. wrote the book and some lyrics for Broadway’s Ain’t Misbehaving while Shire’s adapted score to Saturday Night Fever won him a Grammy Award. The composer followed it up with an Oscar win for “It Goes Like It Goes” for the film Norma Rae.
In 1983, Maltby Jr. and Shire collaborated on the Broadway musical Baby (Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Score) which ran six months, but has been produced all over the world. Maltby Jr. also directed and wrote lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance and adapted the libretto and lyrics for Miss Saigon. Next came the collaborators’ second revue, Closer Than Ever (Outer Critic’s Circle Award for Best Musical.)
Thirteen years later, the partners wrote a musical version of the film Big, for which they were nominated for a Best Score Tony Award. The show’s development is chronicled in Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical by journalist Barbara Isenberg. Estimable York Theater produced a newer version created for the tour. Revisions Maltby Jr. then said, were an opportunity to concentrate on what was personal and human.
Both artists have gone on to rich careers in a multitude of genres. Hundreds of regional and stock productions of their work live on. When asked the secret of so many fertile, committed years, Shire responds, “It’s because we never said, I won’t to each other.”
President Linda Amiel Burns; MD Michael Lavine
We open with the eternal Marilyn Maye who offers a lilting “Starting Here, Starting Now” (from the revue of the same name). Even reading lyrics, she looks up and connects. Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II’s “I Hear Music” oddly follows in Maye’s inimitable expert swing, but why ? It’s the only song not written by honorees. (Pianist David Pearl)
Marilyn Maye; Eric Michael Gillett
Michael Lavine then assumes the piano seat to accompany Eric Michael Gillett’s “Watching the Big Parade Go By.” The vocalist’s arm sharply gestures as if emulating a band marshal. Gillett might be that boy in a tree. He bubbles over with anticipation, then glee. This is a singing actor. (The Sap of Life) From the original cast, we then hear 87 year-old Patricia Bruder DeBrovner sing “Time and Again.” : I’m suddenly certain that I’m in love, love, love, love…Married 65 years, the vocalist remembers and understands. Arranger Deniz Cordell joins Lavine at the piano. Four hands play with deference and delicacy.
Patricia Bruder DeBrovner; Jenny Lee Stern
Jenny Lee Stern animates the sympathetic “When He Marries Me” (How Do You Do, I Love You) in rather Betty Boop fashion: There will be one less single girl in town now…one room empty at the Barbizon…One less me and one more us…From the original cast of Cyrano, Margery Cohen performs “Autumn.” Denouement swells, then drifts down like a leaf. The song is beautiful, melody like sighing; interpretation affecting.
Margery Cohen; Kate Tuckerman
From atop the piano, Kate Tuckerman sings “Miss Byrd” (Closer Than Ever): I sit here at my desk/And no one knows/That twenty minutes ago/I was not wearing clothes…Playing seduction for all its worth, the vocalist unfortunately swallows her microphone causing droll lyrics to be lost.
In 1985, Danny Bacher tells us, his parents took him to see Return to Oz at Radio City Music Hall, apparently a much darker film than its predecessor. “The star of that film was not Fairuza Balk, but rather David Shire’s score,” he comments. With transcription from violin to (Bacher’s) soprano sax by Cordell who also conducts, the band plays an excerpt from the film’s haunting, densely textured score.
Danny Bacher; Daniel Jenkins
Maltby/Shire’s Big opened as a Broadway musical in 1996. The show’s original Josh Baskin, Daniel Jenkins, sings “Cross the Line” in which the boy-in-a-man’s-body tries to get office peers to loosen up and have fun. Step, shift, step, shift, eyes wide, he boyishly exclaims, Golly, she kissed me…All I know is this wasn’t a kiss from mom…(referring to adult girlfriend Susan Lawrence). Forty years drop off the enthusiastic vocalist.
Benjamin Pajak; Jill Paice
Benjamin Pajak, having recently tread the boards in The Music Man, follows with Josh’s “I Wanna Go Home.” The character is alone and daunted at the Port Authority Bus Terminal: This is exciting, it’s an adventure/I get to do things no one else can do/That man just took a knife out of his shoe…A fine voice and acting chops engage. Jill Paice becomes Josh’s mom for “Stop Time,” a universal wish expressed with warmth.
Gretchen Cryer, herself an esteemed songwriter, was in the collaborators’ second show at Yale. “Girls could not yet matriculate, they had to look elsewhere.” Cut from Big, “Little Susan Lawrence” depicts the heroine poring through her grade school yearbook. At an admitted 65, Susan looks back to her first love, “dear sweet, Buzz Babcock.”Buoyed by long strokes of Debbie Seppe’s wonderful, bowed cello, we believe every sentiment.
Gretchen Cryer; Mark William
The first Maltby/Shire musical to reach Broadway was 1983’s terrific Baby. Mark William, as an incipient father, earnestly sings “I Chose Right.” Lyric is authentic, music head-bobbing, as befits the young character. Sean Harkness’ guitar fingering adds personality. Also from the musical, Austin Pendleton, in questionable assignment, performs “The Story Goes On.”: And all these things I feel and more/My mother’s mother felt and hers before/A chain of life began upon the shore of some dark sea has reached to me…These are thoughts and feelings of a pregnant, first time mother! The song itself is glorious.
Austin Pendleton; Loni Ackerman
Recreating the number she originated in Starting Here, Starting Now, Loni Ackerman assumes a stool, her book, and pencil for “Crossword Puzzle” about a woman too smart for her own good: I am sitting here doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, somehow the words won’t come /Can you figure it, me with my splendid vocabulary, maybe I should play dumb…It’s an extremely clever song rife with crossword fill-ins and letter-by-letter insertion. Ackerman was (I saw it) and is funny, but this iteration is too fast leavening humor.
Christiane Noll; Steve Ross
“The Bear, The Tiger, The Hamster, and The Mole”…have females who live fruitful lives outside of male control… (Closer Than Ever) has Christiane Noll displaying Maltby’s feminist side. Ever the philosopher humanist he has a good time with this one as does the capable actress. “David wrote this Oscar winning song for Norma Rae with Norman Gimbel,” Lavine tells us introducing “It Goes Like It Goes.” Standing by the piano (Lavine plays), Steve Ross performs from life experience- low key, tender and wise. It’s pristine.
Sean Harkness; George Lee Andrews
Sean Harkness reached out to participate in tonight’s event. Clearly a fan, he put together an arrangement of “Manhattan Skyline” from Saturday Night Fever. The tune is cocky, rhythmic, and infectiously HAPPY. At the other end of the spectrum, “I Don’t Remember Christmas” (Starting Here, Starting Now) is rendered with gusto by George Lee Andrews. Characterization is determined, bitter, exuberant.
Barbara Bleier; David Maltby, Jr.
“There” (Closer Than Ever) places ersatz husband and wife Barbara Bleier and Richard Maltby, Jr. at a marriage therapist’s: There/He was never there/Every time we talked, I’d look in his eyes/And his mind was where? Wordplay of “here” and “there”, pauses, finishes one another’s sentences, displays aggravation, bewilderment, and love. It’s a scene in one worthy of Noel Coward. The performers are pitch perfect, Maltby’s expression, priceless. It really isn’t fair/That we end up here/When we were there…
Walter Willison; Steve Brinberg
Walter Willison’s version of “What About Today?!” is as desperate and distressed as that song has ever landed. The performer seems to be reacting to the world situation rather than anything intimate. With furrowed brow and snapping neck, the cry goes out. In contrast, Steven Brinberg’s high tenor “Beautiful” (with Barbra Streisand’s left hand) calms. (Starting Here, Starting Now)
Charlotte Maltby does justice to “I Think I May Want to Remember Today,” – love at first sight excitement of Queen Victoria towards Prince Albert. Vocal is ebullient, wide open. Have you seen his shoulders?! She sings gesturing width. Maltby, Jr. and Shire make the public figure appear confidential, vulnerable; accessible.
Charlotte Maltby
“They asked me to say some nice things about my dad,” Charlotte Maltby begins. “Getting to sing my dad’s songs is the greatest honor of my life. They’re all little plays, truly an actor’s dream. Dad taught me the magic of words, that they can change an emotional state, someone’s mind or heart. Through music and lyrics he and David (Shire) have questioned what’s human… Now I’m gonna welcome back to the stage my papa bear.” Father and daughter hug.
“This is a song for both my father and David’s,” Maltby, Jr. notes introducing “If I Sing” (Closer Than Ever): What he loved he taught me./Now music’s what I do./And often when I’m writing,/in my hands, Dad’s there too…Heart-in-the-throat sensitivity emerges with gratitude and grace.
Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire
Linda Amiel Burns commends and congratulates the honorees. It’s clear she herself is an avid fan. Both artists thank The American Popular Song Society, tonight’s performers, Michael Lavine and Deniz Cordell (Maltby/Shire’s own musical arranger). They are, as one might expect, eloquent and modest. Write on!
Photos by Maryann Lopinto
Opening Photo Courtesy of the American Popular Song Society
Established in 1980, as the New York Sheet Music Society, the American Popular Song Society (name changed in 2015) is a New York based, not-for-profit social organization, dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the American Song Book, by providing a forum for discussion, education, performance, the encouragement of current songwriters to create new songs which extend the tradition, and the collection of classic sheet music.
American Popular Song Society 2024 GALA honoring Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire with Lifetime Achievement Awards
President Linda Amiel Burns
Music Director/Piano/Director- Michael Lavine
Orchestrator/Co-Music Director/Piano- Deniz Cordell
Michael O’Brien-bass, Daniel Glass- drums, Sean Harkness-guitar, Debbie Sepe- cello, Danny Bacher- saxophones
Monday June 17, 2024
The Cutting Room
44 East 32nd Street
