Passengers fi
eccentric song cyc!

Michael Becker
RECORD REVIEW

EW YORK City-based

Jazz Passengers swing

with absurdist inclina-
tions on their latest release, in
Love.

Guest vocalists include Jimmy
Scott, Deborah Harry, Mavis
Staples, Jennie Muldaur, Bernard
Fowler and Freedy Johnston.

The sextet plays Vancouver on
Saturday at the Vogue with
Deborah Harry.

Music Now spoke with
Passengers co-leader and principal
composer Roy Nathanson
Music Now: How did you con-
rect with Hal Willner to produce

In Lovee

Roy: “i’ve known Hal for years
and he’s been a fan of the
Passengers. We've never really
had! the right project to de. Bob
Appel, who used to be a partner at
the Knitting Factory, he became,

-as luck would have it, the A&R

_ guy at High Street Records with
Windham Hill. Windham Hili had
this idea of trying to change their
image.

“More power to Windham Hili,

_ they hired this guy who knows the
‘music and they said, ‘Well get us
. the preduct.’

“They were really behind it.
_Hal was down and we just basi-
“cally did it the way we wanted to

do it.”

Music Now: Has an ali-voca! pro-

ject for the band been in the

works for some tizne?

__ Roy: “We've done a bunch of

albums and it's always been the-
 Vatrical. We've always had a cou-
ple of vocal tunes on every album
mixed with the general theatre of
it.

* I've always been very

PHOTO subimitted

‘ROY NATHANSON and fellow Jazz Passengers swing with

Deborah Harry at the Vogue Sept. 24.

involved in theatre and Curtis
(Fowlkes) is the singer — we've
always had this Mutt and Jeff act.
“The guys in the band are great
players and we had this music that
was beautiful and strong and had

-this theatrical dirnension to it.”

Music Now: Hew did you choose
the singers?

Roy: “It was like casting.
Actually originally | wrote the first
three songs for julie Delpy, who
wanted to do an album. It didn’t
nappen but it got me writing

songs.

“David Cale is a performance
artist and he’d written the words to
mast of the songs I'd done before.
He dogs these monologues with
music pieces. I've done al! the
music for his last couple of shaws.
So it was kind of an evolution with
Ray Dobbins, a playwright.”
Music Now: fs the tour with
Deborah a North America-wide
one?

Roy: “Ya, it’s all through. We're
starting on the West Coast. It’s
exciting and the whole thing is
kinel af cool because it's a strange
combination. It’s going to be
rough because they are hard
songs, but she’s a really wonderful
singer, what | consider a good
singer,

“She's got a beautiful voice and
she'll cover as many of them

(songs from the disc) as she can
cover —- some of them are really
rough.”

Music Now: Are you going to
cover any Blondie songs?

Roy: “We were going tc do
one, but it shall remain
unnamed.”

a@eae

Emmy, Tony, Oscar, Golden
Globe award winner, close friend
of Chita Rivera, superstar of stage
and screen, recording artist,
daughter of the legendary Judy
Garland and Academy award-
winning film director Vincente
Minnelli, concert touring pal of
Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis
Jr.. star of 1991's charming feel-
good movie Stepping Out -—
yes!!! — Liza “with a Z” Minnelli
is here, up close and in person, in
Vancouver, this week, Sept. 23,
24, 25 at Queen Elizabeth
Theatre. Tickets are available at
Ticketmaster, 280-4444,

The scoop on seme of Liza's
remarkable career to date:

BTV special in 1980, Goldie and
Liza Together;

Paramount Picture’s 1969
release The Sterile Cuckoo;

f@ United Artists’ 1977 release of
New York, New York;

i Columbia Records release of
Liza Minnelli — Live at Radio City
Music Hall.

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