An Evening With Jerry Herman

They Say...

Review by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

When Broadway songwriter Jerry Herman agreed to appear as part of the Lyrics & Lyricists series at the 92nd Street YM & YWHA on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for the fall season of 1974, the composer of the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! and Mame probably was expecting to be celebrating the success of his new show, Mack & Mabel. But when Herman took the stage along with singers Lisa Kirk, Joe Masiéll, and Carol Dorian to talk and perform an hour's worth of his show tunes on November 24, 1974, Mack & Mabel, savaged by critics, was stumbling toward an early closing; it would run only six more days, until November 30, 1974, leaving Broadway after 65 performances and thus becoming the biggest flop of Herman's career, as well as his second in a row (following 1969's Dear World). Thus, his appearance at the Y was an act of bravery, but he gave no indication of trouble in his presentation. Instead, seated at the piano, he took his audience through his career up to that point, his remarks obviously scripted but nonetheless informative and entertaining, and he sang in what he called a little old shaky voice, or gave the songs over to his trio of associates. The evening began with "Mame" and ended with "Hello, Dolly!," but in between things were chronological, starting briefly with one song, "Shalom," from Herman's first Broadway musical, the not-quite-successful Milk and Honey, then going on to extensive excerpts from Hello, Dolly! and Mame accompanied by comments about the composition of the songs and the circumstances of the shows. Herman introduced two songs from Dear World by revealing that "I Don't Want to Know" was his favorite of all the songs he had written, and he made good choices from the score for Mack & Mabel, including "Tap Your Troubles Away," which Kirk, then appearing in the doomed show downtown, replicated from her Broadway performance. Even with only the composer's piano accompaniment, the songs demonstrate Herman's talent as a writer, and his remarks show his devotion to musical theater at what may have been the midpoint of the then-41-year-old's career. (Unfortunately, the album, which contained all or part of 21 tunes, was not banded by song, just running as one continuous track, which made it difficult to pick out individual songs without listening to the whole.)