Jeff Harnar Sings Cy Coleman – The Pheasantry

Jeff Harnar Sings Cy Coleman at The Pheasantry, London.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★  

After giving us a brilliant and intimate tribute to Sondheim, with I Know Things Now: My Life in Sondheim’s Words, Jeff Harnar was back at The Pheasantry to honour a less celebrated genius, the great Cy Coleman, making it again more a personal affair than an ordinary concert. Arranged, orchestrated and conducted by his life-long musical director and accompanist Alex Rybeck, with UK artists Sammy Mayne on the sax and flute and Robert Rickenberg on the bass, Harnar took us on a personal journey through his musical love affair with Coleman, which started when his grandfather gave him a cast recording of Sweet Charity, an unusual gift for a seven-year-old, but a gift that changed his life. He aptly opened his shows with ‘Big Spender’, before moving on to a climatic version of ‘The Rhythm of Life’, followed by ‘My Personal Property’ from the movie version of Charity, mashed up with the rarely heard ‘My City’ from the underrated Seesaw, with special lyrics by Barry Kleinbort.  

After that came an upbeat medley of Coleman’s first Broadway hit ‘Hey! Look Me Over!’ from the Lucille Ball musical Wildcats, with the too rarely heard ‘Hey There, Good Times’ from I Love My Wife, a 1970s chamber piece musical based on the French comedy Viens chez moi, j’habite chez une copine by Louis Rigo. Two other songs from that delightful but little-known musical were ‘Ev’rybody Today is Turning On’, commenting on the drug culture of those days, and ‘Sexually Free’, cunningly associated with Coleman’s standard ‘When in Rome’, with wonderful lyrics by the great Carolyn Leigh, about whom Harnar has a lot of irresistible anecdotes.

Unfortunately, those tongue-in-cheek numbers are absent from Harnar’s CD A Collective Cy, just released by PS Classics, but the more romantic moments, such as the breathtaking ‘With Every Breath I Take’ from City of Angels, ‘You Fascinate Me So’ and ‘Some Kind of Music’, with marvellous lyrics by Leigh again, are preserved, with special treats including a duet with the fantastic Ann Hampton Callaway on ‘I’ve Got Your Number’ from Little Me and another with the her equally talented sister Liz of ‘Our Private World’ from Coleman’s mock operetta On the Twentieth Century. 

‘A Doodlin’ Song’ was a fit tribute to the great Peggy Lee, whose granddaughter Holly Foster was in the room, followed by ‘Witchcraft’, including its rarely performed nod to Sinatra verse. My personal favourite was a medley of ‘The Rules of the Road’ and ‘Come Summer’, ending with ‘I’m Way Ahead’ from Seesaw, one of the best scores of all time, as far as I’m concerned. Other special moments were ‘So Little Time’, cut from the musical Barnum, and ‘Somebody’, the only song of the evening with both music and lyrics by Coleman.

‘The Best is Yet to Come’, perhaps Coleman’s most famous standard, made for a fitting finale, followed by a reprise of ‘You’re Nothing Without Me’ from City of Angels, renamed ‘We’re Nothing Without You’, performed as a duet with Rybeck, celebrating Harnar’s and his longtime musical partnership, with additional lyrics from the original writer, the great David Zippel. 

A brief encore with just a snippet of ‘If They Could See Me Now’ from Sweet Charity left us longing for more, but luckily most of the evening has been immortalised in its companion CD, A Collective Cy. Aptly directed by Sara Louise Lazarus, the great Harnar was at the top of his game, holding the loving audience in the palm of his hand. An affair to remember indeed. 

Patrick Honoré