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Songwriting team Alpher and Litt brought their show, Composing Ourselves into Metropolitan Room in Chelsea, for several shows in January, 2011. The show was directed by Barry Kleinbort and the musicians were: David Alpher, pianist and composer; Ritt Henn, upright bass and Jennie Litt, singer and lyricist. The songs were mostly light and witty, and delivered in a professional manner. Jennie is a good singer and storyteller, while David has fine musicianship and obvious rapport with his wife. The set mainly consisted of their originals, but a few standards were included.
They began with an original “Your Standard Standard,” where the lyrics were making fun of the Great American Songbook. David and Ritt played easily together, putting in a beguine beat. This was followed by Rodgers & Hart’s “Isn’t it Romantic.” Jennie’s voice is in mid-range, pleasing to the ear, with good intonation and a nice vibrato.
The songs of Litt and Alpher are different from the run-of-the-mill pieces. “Two Apples” had cute lyrics – a story of different apples growing on the same branch - and the music contained a strumming rhythm; “Thong Song” was an amusing story – a bit risqué about women’s clothing,. Jennie’s patter about catering led into “I Want to be a TV Chef,” which had great rhymes and made the audience laugh out loud. “Hello in There” was an emotionally delivered ballad about their 2 year-old daughter Mirabelle (David had composed the music while a student at the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop way back in 1974!); and “The Voyage of the Manatee” was another cute story done in 6/8 time with beautiful piano accompaniment.
At this point, they inserted the familiar standard, “Can’t Help Lovin’ that Man” and even though the audience knew the song backwards and forwards, it was a pleasure to listen to Alpher, Litt and Henn’s version.
The remainder of the set had three more original tunes. “Going Nowhere Fast,” whose gist was ‘one must live each minute as if it were your last.’ “If I Were,” a simple song about love from various perspectives, and the encore “The Cosmic Perspective,” a thought-provoking tune with a catchy waltz melody. Altogether, I enjoyed the songs by Alpher and Litt, as it was a fresh relief of honesty and fun in this hectic world.
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