JUDY GARLAND
The Amsterdam Concert, December 1960
First Hand Records FHR 18
CD1
1. Judy Garland interviewed by Nikko van Fleet
2. Male dialogue
3. Orchestral Introduction
4. Ageeth Scherphuis Announcement
5. Orchestral Number
6. Norrie Paramor interviewed by Ageeth Scherphuis
7. Garland Overture
8. When You're Smiling
9. Almost Like Being In Love/This Can't Be Love
10. Talk: "It's Lovely to be Here in Amsterdam..."
11. Do It Again
12. Talk: Paris Hairdresser Story
13. You Go To My Head
14. Talk: "I Wonder What All the People Listening to the Radio Are Thinking..."
15. Alone Together
16. Talk: "I'm Known, If I'm Known At All..."
17. Who Cares?
18. Talk: "The Next Starts With a Moan..."
19. Puttin' on the Ritz
20. Talk: "I Think the Next is a Sort of Strip-Tease Tempo..."
21. How Long Has This Been Going On?
22. Just You, Just Me
23. The Man That Got Away
24. San Francisco
25. Talk: "I Could Stay Here for a Week..."
26. Sid Luft interviewed by Ageeth Scherphuis
CD2
1. That's Entertainment
2. I Can't Give You Anything But Love
3. Talk: "Now You Know You Can't Get Any Attractive Pictures from There..."
4. Come Rain or Come Shine
5. Talk: "I Ran Out of Breath on the Last Note..."
6. You're Nearer
7. Talk: "There's Another Nice Song..."
8. If Love Were All
9. Talk: "Shall We Go On With This Nonsense..."
10. A Foggy Day (In London Town)
11. Talk: "We Had About Twenty Stagehands in Paris..."
12. Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart
13. Talk: "I Can Hear a Marvellous Woman Off There..."
14. Stormy Weather
15. You Made Me Love You/For Me and My Gal/the Trolley Song
16. Rock-a-Bye Your Baby (With a Dixie Melody)
17. Bows
18. Talk: "Thank You Very, Very Much..."
19. Over the Rainbow
20. Talk: "You Know We Don't Have Too Many Orchestrations..."
21. Swanee
22. Announcers
23. Talk: "I Think It's Rather Beastly To Keep Coming On and Going Off..."
24. It's a Great Day for the Irish [False Start]
25. It's a Great Day for the Irish
26. Announcers
27. Talk: "I Don't Know What We Can Do..."
28. After You've Gone
29. Talk: "I Think We're Going To Have To Just Do One of Them Over Again..."
30. San Francisco
31. Talk: "God Bless You and Goodnight..."
Judy Garland - Vocals
David Lee - Piano (tracks II/6, 8, 10)
Jos Cleber's Cosmopolitan Orchestra conducted by Norrie Paramor
Judy Garland suffered a nearly fatal dose of hepatitis in late 1959 and was advised by her doctors never to perform again. Yet she had a good period of rest in early 1960 and recuperated enough to return to recording in April 1960. Her husband and manager Sid Luft booked her to do two shows at the London Palladium and this led to her giving almost sixty two-hour shows between August 1960 and December 1961 in Europe and the USA. This album contains a notable concert that she gave at the Tuschinski Theatre in Amsterdam on 10 December 1960 which was broadcast by the Dutch public broadcasting association. The result is this double CD.
The 38-year-old Garland begins slightly nervously but she won over the audience until they were eventually loudly enthusiastic. One Dutch newspaper reported that her personality and soul affected the audience strongly. Additional elements were Garland's enthusiasm and sincerity - and the effect of her voice, which had lost little of the power it possessed in such films as The Wizard of Oz.
Judy may have been through some troubling times but her professionalism ensured that she gave the audience their money's worth, projecting the songs with passion and making the lyrics come across clearly. She had always been good at belting out a song, but she could also transmit all the poignancy in a song like The Man That Got Away. Some of the most effective items are the pieces she sings just with David Lee's piano accompaniment. Noel Coward's If Love Were All is a real tear-jerker. The seldom-heard You're Nearer, written by Rodgers & Hart for the 1940 film Too Many Girls, is well worth reviving.
Garland's technical mastery is often overlooked but it is evident in Stormy Weather, where she changes key correctly without any backing. Towards the end of the concert, she seems to be running out of songs that have been orchestrated for the band, and Judy repeats such songs as San Francisco, but this doesn't worry the audience, who by this time are enthusiastic about whatever Garland sings. She even has to start It's a Great Day for the Irish
afresh, as she says "I swallowed and breathed at the same time". Such honesty helps to win the audience over even more securely.
In the middle of the first CD, Judy says "I like to sing jazz" and she tries Who Cares? and Puttin' on the Ritz, where she swings and gently improvises but doesn't sound particularly jazzy.
The concert is interspersed with announcements in Dutch and interviews in English, which don't add much to the proceedings. In fact it is about 16 minutes before Judy's first song, but thereafter the concert is a string of delights. The performances are as good as they were in The London Studio Recordings which I reviewed recently (http://www.musicweb-international.com/nostalgia/2005/Garland_FHR12.htm) but the audience response heightens the temperature for those who like the feeling that they were present at a performance.
Tony Augarde
www.augardebooks.co.uk
