Halalisa Singers: Great American Songbook

Boston-based world music vocal ensemble The Halalisa Singers led by artistic director Mary Cunningham presents Great American Songbook on Saturday, April 27, 7:30 pm at First Parish of Arlington, 630 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington, MA. Joining the group are pianist Trevor Berens, percussionist Bertram Lehmann, clarinetist Glenn Dickson, and bassist Keala Kaumeheiwa. Tickets $25 at www.halalisa.org. For more info, email info@halalisa.org.

With choral aplomb and a rousing piano, “Gershwin! A Concert Panorama” seamlessly blends some of George Gershwin’s best-loved songs, including “Fascinating Rhythm,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” and “I Got Rhythm.” The chorus showcases tight swing, rhythm, and jazz harmonies in the great Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” Harold Arlen’s “I’ve Got the World on a String,” and Kirby Shaw’s smooth and sassy “Beyond the Sea.” Speaking of swing, it’s in full force for Joshua Jacobson and Art Bailey’s arrangement of Sholom Secunda’s classic from the Yiddish theater, “Bai Mir Bisti Sheyn,” which also features a vocal trio a la The Andrews Sisters and Glenn Dickson’s wailing klezmer clarinet. The irresistible “Java Jive,” arranged by Russell Robinson, extols the joys of a good cup of coffee.

Irving Berlin, a Jewish immigrant from Russia who came to the United States at the age of five, revised his well-known patriotic song “God Bless America” in 1938 as World War II loomed, transforming it into what he imagined as a “peace song” in the face Hitler’s rise. The song became quite popular, even as anti-Semitic groups protested against it. Halalisa sings it in tandem with Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” written as a response to Berlin’s hit, which Guthrie felt did not portray the Depression-era hardships faced by so many. “Over the Rainbow” was written by Jewish songwriters Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, both children of immigrants who fled the pogroms. Their imagined world of peace, joy, and perennial blue skies isn’t just a reflection of universal human longing, it’s an anthem for Jewish survival.

The high voices of Halalisa sing a jazzified version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s delightful “My Favorite Things” and the sultry balero-mambo “Quién Será?/Sway.” The low voices perform Norman Luboff’s lilting “Yellow Bird,” a Calypso style song inspired by music of the Caribbean isles, and Kurt Weill’s “Mack the Knife,” composed for “The Threepenny Opera” and made famous in America through renditions by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bobby Darin.

The concert also showcases the individual voices of Halalisa, as soloists and small groups present Edith Piaf’s signature song “La Vie En Rose,” “Makin’ Whoopee” by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn, a duet featuring Hoagy Carmichael tunes “Skylark/Stardust,” Cole Porter’s “Friendship,” and from the Latin American Songbook, Jobim’s “Corcovado.”