Lost In The Stars With Kurt Weill

I was frustrated by the lack of organization & economy in our utility closet the other day. In the jumble I found a bag of cassette tapes (remember cassettes?) that included two Kurt Weill tribute albums that I really loved to listen to, but had forgotten in the move to CDs. About my post about September Song, my friend Howard (who knows a thing or 2 about music) mentioned how much he loves Weill’s melodies & I happen to agree. I don’t have a cassette player anymore, except in my automobile, so I have been happily reacquainted with these two albums while driving around Portland. I offer Kurt Weill himself with Charlie Hayden on the beautiful Speak Low.



German born composer Kurt Weill's music has aged quite well through the years & has been rediscovered & reinterpreted by such diverse artists as Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Willie Nelson, the Doors, & Teresa Stratas. Just prior to the 70th anniversary of the classic Three Penny Opera, which made its debut in 1928, producer Hal Wilner supervised the brilliant 1985 Weill tribute Lost in the Stars & 1997’s September Songs. Wilner chose a wide array of artists for both projects, ranging from pop musicians such as Sting, Marianne Faithful, Tom Waits, Todd Rundgren, PJ Harvey & Elvis Costello to jazz vocalist Betty Carter, opera soprano Teresa Stratas, beat author William S. Burroughs, & the gospel stylings of the Persuasions. Among the true joys Lost In The Stars, aside from the wonderful new renditions, is the inclusion of recordings by Weill's wife- Lotte Lenya, from 1955 on Pirate Jenny, lyricist Bertolt Brecht performing Mack the Knife in 1930 in its original German, & Weill himself, joined via modern recording technology by bassist Charlie Haden, singing the beautiful Speak Low. Without a weak performance on the entire album, Wilner has done an excellent job of capturing the beauty & scope of one of the 20th century's greatest composers.