SOUNDTRACK: THE BAND’S VISIT-Tiny Desk Concert #745 (May 21, 2018).
After nearly 800 Tiny Desk concerts, The Band’s Visit is the first Broadway musical ever to play the series.
The show opens with four men in powder blue uniforms (the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra–Garo Yellin-cello; Sam Sadigursky-clarinet; Harvey Valdes-oud; Ossama Farouk-darbouka) playing “Soraya,” a lively instrumental.
From the first note strummed on the oud, Yazbek’s nominated score transports the Tiny Desk to the Middle East with traditional instrumentation and melodies, and weaves in beautiful theatrical ballads.
The Band’s Visit insists that it’s OK, even essential, to get “stuck” with strangers who have different perspectives. It serves as a poignant reminder that our common connection to music can rise above the noise of intolerance
The composer David Yazbek comes out to explain the scene:
The story of The Band’s Visit, told the Tiny Desk audience, “is about hope and faith and silence and music.” It tells the tale of Egyptian musicians stranded in a small Israeli village. The townspeople have no choice but to take them in. Eventually, the love of music allows the characters to see past their differences and form an unlikely bond in a single night. The musical was adapted from the 2007 film and has been nominated for 11 Tony Awards.
He introduces Katrina Lenk (nominated for a Tony Award). For this song, she is reminiscing about her childhood growing up in the middle of nowhere in Israel. The main cultural delight was through her mothers radio and TV via Arabic music and movie stars like Umm Kulthum and Omar Sharif.
“Omar Sharif” is a beautiful song with a wonderful really compelling melody. It’s noy musical-like at all. It is very passionate with one big moment but never over the top. Her accent as she sings is wonderful. I love the lyric
honey in my ears / spice in my mouth
The song features Andrea Grody on piano and Alexandra Eckhart on bass.
Although it’s a Broadway smash hit, it lacks the opulent, bring-down-the-house song and dance numbers. It’s a more intimate show with some universal messages that fit the up, close and personal space of the Tiny Desk.
Dina interacts with Tewfiq the leader of the orchestra, “the swarthy, handsome Tony Award nominated Tony Shaloub.”
She asks him to sing something and he offers an Arabic poem (a capella).
Yazbek’s poem Itgara’a, translated here from Arabic and sung a cappella by Tony Shalhoub, sums up the show’s philosophy:
When you drink, drink deeply / Drink deeply of the moonlight / drink deeply of the dark / of the loneliness / of the joy.
You will never drain the moonlight / you can never end the dark. / In your eyes, the flash of joy / in your mouth, the sweet shock of honey.
You are the joy / you are the loneliness. / Drink deep.
It’s followed by a wild and fun instrumental “Haj-Butrus” with pizzicato violin, some wild oud work and an amazing darbouka solo.
For the final song he tells us about a character. The telephone guy. He’s off at the side of the stage at a pay phone waiting for it to ring–for… days? weeks? He’s waiting for his girlfriend to call. The last song is a culmination of everyone yearning for human connection and something deeper.
“Answer Me” features “telephone guy” who is Adam Kantor. Kristen Sieh (who plays Iris) representing the cast of thousands and George Abud who plays Camal (and the violin solo earlier) plays some oud in this song.
Kantor has a lovely high voice. After a brief instrumental break, Lenk sings and then with the backing players as a chorus Shaloub joins in as well. Although of all of the songs played, this is my least favorite.
The crew from the show, which opened last November at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, descended on NPR at 8:30 a.m. — seven musicians, five actors, a wardrobe department, a make-up artist, a publicist, a music director, the composer and even a vlogger. We started early so they could hustle back to Manhattan for a 7 p.m. curtain.
The musical sounds wonderful and I’d like to hear the rest of the soundtrack.
[READ: July 7, 2016] “The Midnight Zone”
I found this story to be mostly good but there was something that didn’t resonate with me. The whole story is told in a very detached, first-person style.
The story opens with a family staying in an old hunting camp. They are told that a Florida panther was seen in the camp a few days earlier, but things were pretty quiet for them.
“we had lunch, then the elder boy tried to make a fire by rubbing sticks together, his little brother attending solemnly…. Then dinner, singing songs, a bath in the galvanized-steel horse trough…and that was it for the day.”
The father/husband gets a call that he has to return home for an emergency. He said he’d be back in two days. And so it was just the wife and her two (very) young sons. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 