Weill Inspirations

When I first started working on my CD of the songs of Kurt Weill, I knew I wanted to do the gorgeous Speak Low, but the coaches I saw in New York all advised me to do it as this shlocky uptempo musical theatre thing. And it made me itch - probably because the words are so heartbreaking... I couldn't see myself believing in an interpretation of these words


Speak low when you speak, love
Our summer day withers away too soon, too soon
Speak low when you speak, love
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift,
we're swept apart, too soon

as some bouncy fingersnappin' uptempo thing. So I was delighted to stumble upon a strange recording of the amazing bassist, Charlie Haden, jamming on this song with a recording of Kurt Weill, the man himself, apparently taken from some rehearsal where he was coaching the song. And it's heartbreaking. (ok...the video itself is kind of kitsch...but it was the 80's.... however the song is gorgeous... hell, anything Haden ever did is gorgeous...)




so Stan (my amazing pianist) and I decided to do it as slow as possible and just let all those beautiful words and harmonies just flow out. This is live from the show...





and you can hear the version from the CD here... or here - on Amazon, or itunes..

Edfringe Launches

The Edinburgh Fringe is on-line at last (after a bunch of server problems) with their program for the summer. www.edfringe.com and Whiskey Bars is up and listed in The Vault venue... God! - one little 40 word listing on the web is going to be so much amazing work for the summer. Luckily we now have the amazing and indomitable Irish playwright Maureen Mcmanus on our side - she's an old friend from when I lived in London and will be in Edinburgh for the first week and giving us a hand doing publicity and keeping our spirits up in the competition with the 2000 or so (Ack!) other shows going on at the same time...

"I lock myself inside a pantry of despair....."

Worked for NXNE music fest at the Kathedral venue... taped a few seconds of all the bands on Saturday night, and a few in the upstairs venues... spot the Gold Lame funk band - what were they thinking!





Bands are

From Toronto
Run With Kitten's
Oh No Forest Fires
Infighter
Dance Yourself to Death

then from Madrid - FRIDA

Philadelphia's - Adam and Dave's Bloodline

Spain again with - We are Balboa

from Toronto
The Hip Hop/Djembe group - Grand Analog
The fashion challenged - Foxfire
The trying very hard funk band - God Made me Funky

Winnipeg's - The Sons of York

and finally the fabulous toronto neo-punk band Tin Bangs

Lennie the Magnificent

honestly... he was... just amazing... 73 and brimming with charisma and charm and honesty.. it was a totally brave concert... he could have walked out and coasted on his hits and just walked through the evening, but he made it extraordinary...

OMG!

Why does this kind of freak me out... just checked itunes and amazon.com and the CD is up there as well... available in whole or by single song download... i guess that something about being a part of the apple empire and actually participating in this 'new economy' is very odd... I had enough trouble with the old economy, much less the new one...

anyway... for those who swing that way - its now searchable, viewable, buyable on

Amazon
Rhapsody
Tradebit
Apple iTunes
GreatIndieMusic
PayPlay
Inprodicon (whatever that is...)

Virtual CD Launch Party

At last the digital age. My first CD goes up on sale for downloads at CD Baby. You can just click on a button and the songs will arrive in your computer - no clumsy jewel case, no CD to get scratched - it is all virtual. I feel so light and modern and new... I'm thinking of following the example of Jane Siberry and changing my name, renouncing possessions and travelling the world with nothing but a macbook and a great set of clothes.... but then I'd also feel a bit too much like a character in a William Gibson novel...

anyway, I digress... the songs are available at http://cdbaby.com/cd/bremner or just click on






it features 14 songs from Weill's early works with Brecht to his last unfinished Broadway show: Huck Finn. The pianist is the wonderful Stan Cramer. This CD came out of a collaboration between Stan and Bremner on a show of Kurt Weill’s songs that has since toured across the world. Critics have said…



"Bremner Duthie has a voice of power and inner beauty that commands the whole space..... One feels seduced by the sheer power and beauty of this performance"
-- Musical Stages Magazine: London, England



“And my god, does he ever sing. Bremner's performance is jaw-dropping-my jaw literally dropped-as he not only sings beautifully but actually performs the songs beautifully as well. " --View Magazine, Hamilton , Ontario



"When he sings, his voice is like a big, dark, sultry room --full of emotive and expressive possibilities. Even when Duthie sings in languages other than English, the passion and subtext come startlingly alive." -- The Georgia Straight, Vancouver



“For many of us, our first exposure to Kurt Weill was on Bette Midler's early albums. Since then, such performers as Ute Lemper and Teresa Statas have become great interpreters of his music. Add Bremner Duthie, the star of 'Whiskey Bars' to that list. He delivers a stunning, stirring rendition of "What Keeps a Man Alive?" and his 'Mack the Knife' is done slowly and seductively, because it's a song for a bad boy. – Stephen Lavigne, Minneapolis Web Reviewer



“Bremner Sings Weill is a 15-song collection of some of the best work of German-born composer Kurt Weill, most famous for his collaborations with writer Bertolt Brecht but who also worked with such lyricists as Ira Gershwin and Oscar Hammerstein. Duthie - with fabulous accompaniment by pianist Stan Cramer - savours each word as a succulent morsel. With Duthie's comforting, soothing baritone voice, this is music to satiate the soul.

Thanks to his background in opera, and talent for cabaret and broadway song styles, Duthie "pays close attention to text," as the expression goes. Indeed, he treats every song as a script and each is quite scenic - none more so than his unique and pleasing interpretation of Weill & Brecht's "Mack The Knife". His vocal presentations also range from celebratory ("Bilbao Song") to mischievous ("Apple Jack") to soft and gentle ("Speak Low"), and then immediately to passionate and with gusto for a trio of tunes ("The Song Of The Big Shot", "What Keeps Mankind Alive" and "Alabama Song"). If you're at all interested in the music of Weill, this is a CD to add to your collection. If you're not familiar with his work, this CD would make an excellent primer. Bremner Sings Weill ... he also sings well ... exceedingly well, as a matter of fact."
Robin Chase, Winnipeg Web Reviewer


FEATURING:

Mack The Knife
(lyrics by Bertold Brecht, from Three Penny Opera)

Youkali
(lyrics by Rodger Fernay)

Bilbao Song
(lyrics by Bertold Brecht, from Happy End)

You Gentlemen Who Think You have a Mission
(lyrics by Bertold Brecht, from Three Penny Opera)

Alabama Song
(lyrics by Bertold Brecht, from Mahagonny)

I'm a Stranger Here Myself
(lyrics by Odgen Nash, from One Touch of Venus)

Je ne t'aime pas
(lyrics by Maurice Magre)

Lost in the Stars
(lyrics by Maxwell Anderson and Alan Paton, from Lost in the Stars)

My Ship.
(lyrics by Ira Gershwin, from Lady in the Dark)

Speak Low
(lyrics by Ogden Nash, from One Touch of Venus)

The Song of the Big Shot
(lyrics by Bertold Brecht, from Happy End)

Nowhere to Go But Up
(lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, from Knickerbocker Holiday)

Apple Jack (backing vocals: Stan Cramer)
(lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, from Huck Finn)

Moon Faced Starry Eyed
(Lyrics by Langston Hughes, from Streetscene)

One Life to Live
(lyrics by Ira Gershwin, from Lady in the Dark)

Gators and Chicks

One last post on Florida. Incredible that these two things can co-exist in the same cheezy theme park - unbelievable delicate nesting birds inches from the camera, and huge fat sleepy overfed gators teased into tearing up raw chicken carcasses...

on the way

and a final highway shot ... ah the glorious tackiness of my home country... I'm gonna miss it... 'cause you know, you just can't beat a big plastic lizard..

the South

so everywhere we go they tell us that Florida is not the south... even though it is south of the south, its still the north! OK....whatever.. but its not till we drive five hours north to visit a friend in Savannah Georgia, that I realize that they were right... north of florida is actually the south. The accents change, everything gets slower and older and suddenly you're in Savannah, where a series of garden squares defines the whole of the old town and moss drips off the Live Oak trees that loom over the ornate buildings. Its just gorgeous... and after the sprawling modern city of Orlando, where you can't get anywhere without a car, it was a pleasure to just walk and walk and walk. Our friend Christian took us out to great jazz bars and restaurants and sent us on our way the next morning filled with a fab breakfast of fried peanut butter and honey sandwiches... now that's the south...

Over and Out

So the Orlando Fringe is over. We rushed out of there and were on the road 30 minutes after the last performance, hightailing it for Sarasota to meet up with Lisa's Parents.... ok, ok... we stopped briefly to get some Krispy Kreme donuts... it only seemed right after weeks of dieting to be able to do this damn show in my underwear... It was great to be back on stage with this show. I miss this goofy and angst ridden character. Its interesting to do the show again and again over the course of several years and see how he and I are evolving. Its harder to get the mix of total confusion he had 7 years ago when I wrote this piece, but I think that he has more conviction on stage. I'll be doing a presentation of it as a fund raiser in Toronto at the end of June... and, for what it's worth, here is what one reviewer thought of it in Orlando... I think he captures the show pretty well..




Whiskey Bars, A Kabarette with the Songs of Kurt Weill
May 17th, 2008 by carl-gauze

Whiskey Bars, A Kabarette with the Songs of Kurt Weill
By Bremner Duthie
Big Empty Barn Productions
Yellow Venue
Orlando International Theater Fringe Festival, Orlando, FL

The whole point of cabaret is that seedy decline into nothingness. But just as a drowning man rises 3 times before the end, the true cabaret singer occasional returns to his former glory and produces one heroic heart rendering performance. Bremner Duthie's "Performer" is on that journey, preparing for a self-financed comeback show that feels doomed from the start. We meet him back stage as an unseen theater critic attempts to fill a few column inches with a readable story, and the Performer makes an attempt to win a new and seducible friend for the evening.

Punctuation this bitter sweet story are the songs of Kurt Weill, sung to a recorded accompaniment from an impossibly large boom box. You know some of them, "Mack The Knife", perhaps "Bilboa Song", "You Gentlemen Who Think You Have A Mission" and a few more obscure ones, including two with lyrics by Ogden Nash, the king of 1950's doggerel verse. By the time he reaches "Speak Low", he has complete stolen your soul, and you wouldn't dream of asking for it back.

Duthie dresses as we watch, building his persona on a base of white face, black tuxedo, and a Soviet-sized glass of cheap vodka. His nearly flat but vaguely European accent gives the songs depth, and a happy set of available lighting makes the show incredibly theatrical. All that's missing is a haze of cigarette smoke and our own glassfuls of cheap liquor.

from http://columns.ink19.com/archikulture/

A Cracker Bird Lover's Paradise

So the oldest theme park in Orlando is not Disney's Magic Kingdom - it's Gatorland! When we told our friends we were heading there they called it 'Crackerville' (Cracker of course being slang for poor white trash in Florida). And it lived up to its name - alligator wrestling, alligator jumping competitions (upcoming video on that), alligator tidbits at the greasy cafe... But weirdly enough, it also turned out to be a nesting paradise for all these super delicate beautiful Florida storks and wading birds. And it was breeding season so we got up close and personal with some very new birds.... but first we visited the Gators...

















But round the edges of the swamp where they have the very very fat and very very sleepy alligators (spoiled things get fed tons of Turkey hot dogs by the tourists... ok, ok... I admit it... I fed them turkey hot dogs as well... ) there are the nesting places of marsh birds, which nest naturally over alligators and crocodiles: thus avoiding the possibility of being raided by Racoons or other rodents... smart little birds... They were amazing. Innumerable nests filled with tiny just hatched storks and ducks and herons... and some very protective mama birds.

Flotilla at Sunset on Key West

Sat on the dock and watched the sun go down, then unexpectedly a whole string of spectacular sailing ships went by right in front of us... a great end to the trip to Key West...

Pelican's on Bahia Honda

I had just swum through an immense school of flashing silver fish... felt like a million fish all around me... and then these guys appeared to appreciate the little fish in a different kind of way...

houses and stripes

a few more pics of the amazing houses in Key West...and one of Lisa looking tropical....

the keys

So in my last post (from a month or two ago) I had to force my way through a mountain of snow to take the snap of that car submerged by a blizzard. And now I'm sitting under a fan in Key West watching the palms blow in the sun. Sometimes procrastination works well ... We're taking time between Lisa's research on her Home book and my show in Orlando to visit the Keys. I haven't been down here for oh... since I was seven... I remember beaches and heat and limes and it seems things haven't changed that much... The picture above is from the veranda of Hemingway's house in Key West with a view of the lighthouse that dominates that part of the Island. Below is Bahia Honda national park, where I spent much of my time as a tiny tanned child... absolutely stunning beach...




The architecture in Key West is amazing... the old Conch houses were built by Shipwrights and have stood up to 150 years of hurricanes. The island was spared any wave of renovation in the mid-20th century because the depression apparently hit it quite hard and it stayed depressed until the 60's when people actually began to pay attention to all the historic houses. Now its a bit touristy and bit overdeveloped around the edges, but the historic centre is just stunning with enourmous Key Lime trees hanging over the houses and gardens filled with Palms. We had a great time just walking around and around the island.






One of the surprisingly non-cheesy highlights of Key West is the Pirate museum. We went expecting a good dose of fake and kitchy pirate themed rooms, but it turns out to be the private collection of a billionaire who has been collecting pirate paraphernalia for years and has put it all on public display. Real gold from Blackbeard's sunken ship. Guns and knives that belonged to Pirate kings, maps pulled from pirate ships and (one of the highlights) an actual treasure chest that belonged to a Pirate that was left behind when he left for his final journey, and never made it back... steel plate inside, a huge locking system inside the lid and a secret lock makes it all look very useful for holding pirate treasure...