Sunday, April 02, 2000

Pianist makes familiar tunes fresh

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BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        Valentine's Day is over. So you'll have to find another excuse to snuggle with your significant other, pour a glass of wine and put Michael Chertock's Love at the Movies on the CD player.

        The album is an appealing mix of 18 love tunes from the silver screen. Mr. Chertock, known locally for his appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, brings a poetic spirit and a freshness to these familiar melodies, which turn up here in new-age and tastefully schmaltzy pop arrangements.

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        Understatement is the key; Mr. Chertock approaches “The Wind Beneath My Wings” (Beaches), for instance, with elegance, simplicity and nuance. He has a knack for making melody soar; the tune to “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic rings through rippling piano runs and cascades.

        The album points out how much today's love stories borrow from the past. My favorite, Hoagy Carmichael's “Stardust” of 1929, was used in films in 1940 and 1970 before it reappeared in Sleepless in Seattle in 1993. Mr. Chertock bathes it in a dusky, warm glow, colored with soft jazz harmonies.

        You can almost hear the words in George Gershwin's “But Not for Me” (When Harry Met Sally), first heard in Girl Crazy (1930) on Broadway.

        The pianist interjects pretty jazz licks into “The Way You Look Tonight” (My Best Friend's Wedding and Father of the Bride), the timeless music of Jerome Kern. (I wish that he had gone the route of Oscar Peterson a bit more.)

        You may envision Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets) when you hear “I Love You for Sentimental Reasons,” but it was first sung by Nat King Cole in 1945. Burt Bacharach's “The Look of Love” (Austin Powers, 1997) was written 30 years earlier for Casino Royale.

        Of course, there's a nod to Shakespeare in “A Time for Us” (Romeo and Juliet) and “A New World (Shakespeare in Love). Mr. Chertock's pianism sometimes takes on the air of Rachmaninoff, which he plays up in “I Will Wait for You” (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) with quotes from Etude-Tableau V.

        It's recorded in Telarc's new Direct Stream Digital system, and the sound is crystalline.

       

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