|
Ohio's transgendered keyboardist, accordionist and harpist Baby Dee used
her androgynous voice to craft the warm and fragile cabaret-tinged melodies
of Little Window (2000), scored for piano only (except the
instrumentals Hymn to Anne and Waiting that replace the piano
with the accordion).
She was already in her 40s when she debuted.
Love's Small Song (2002) was more mature and more touching.
The music is a bit "too" fragile on
Safe Inside the Day (Drag City, 2007), lacking substance and tone
despite the transition to the grand piano as her main instrument.
Best are the two neoclassical instrumentals,
Christmas Jig for a Three-Legged Cat and especially Flowers on the Tracks,
where her eccentric genius finds the proper terrain.
Among the ballads, the one that strikes is Safe Inside the Day.
Despite arrangements that hint at the artsy cabaret of
Kurt Weill and Tom Waits, too many songs are mere repetitions of ideas that
Baby Dee had already used before.
Perhaps this should have been only an EP.
The Robin's Tiny Throat (Durtro) compiles
Little Window and Love's Small Song.
Almost sixty years old, Baby Dee
Regifted Light (2011), produced by Andrew WK and featuring
Matthew Robinson on cello, Mark Messing on bassoon, tuba, and sousaphone, and percussionist Jon Steinmeier,
contains pretty much only one good song (Regifted Light) and then eight
instrumentals (starting with Cowboys With Cowboy Hat Hair) that
mostly display her passion for the instrument.
Her operatic voice is therefore a minor factor here, while the musical-style
piano melodies take its place in a somber and nonchalant way.
|
(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx) Se sei interessato a tradurre questo testo, contattami
|
