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Judy Garland - Recorded Live and Complete - Carnegie Hall - April 23, 1961. DCC Compact Classics/EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets GZS (2) - 1135/1 and 1135/2; 72435-23801-2-1 (Orchestra under the direction of Mort Lindsey). This 24-Karat Gold 2-disc set was mastered directly from the original Capitol Records 3-track "A-set" remote session tapes. Street date: March 14, 2000. represent people's dreams, then I represent a lot more than I really am." Judy Garland, 19671 By the early Sixties the golden age of the great American songbook was coming to an end, and its glory, innocence and beauty could not have been better toasted than in this majestic evening. But it was more than song. It was humor, wit, power, emotion, drama, "pow."7 It was a summation of a career started at age two and a half. It was a time capsule of a half-century of a distinctly American art form. It was a little girl, long associated with some of the great movie musicals, singing with a sweep and assuredness that made the evening more than great entertainment. It was a mature Judy Garland rebounding from a rather frustrating Fifties (save her Capitol studio recordings), during which she made only one film (George Cukor's 1954 A Star Is Born), saw her body inflate to unrecognizable proportions and her drug addiction get no better. When she played Carnegie Hall on that April evening (there was a return engagement on May 21) Garland, the child woman, was announcing that she was back. It was the improbable comeback of the "little hunchback,"8 the "dope addict,"9 the "unhinged"10 "enfant terrible"11 prone to "drinking a drop,"12 the "funny little fat girl,"13 the "medical affair,"14 the "medical phenomenon,"15 the "monster,"16 the "ugly duckling,"17 the "lost"18 soul. The notables in attendance included Harold Arlen, Arthur Schwartz, Julie Styne, Leonard Bernstein, Comden & Green, Dore Schary, Mike Nichols, Chuck Walters, Roger Edens, Richard Burton, Lauren Bacall, Carol Channing, Henry Fonda, Julie Andrews, Maurice Chevalier, Myrna Loy, Rock Hudson and Spencer Tracy. Recovered from a bout of hepatitis in late 1959, fresh from a long stay in her beloved London, and rejuvenated after a critically acclaimed tour of Europe in 1960, Garland was under new management19 and set on making a new name for herself - one of reliability and professionalism. After thirty-five years in the business, she desperately needed to re-establish her reputation and get her finances on track so as not to have to work unless she wanted to. It was greatness. But it was more. It was a religious celebration. Garland's rebirth that evening was also the rebirth of many in her midst. The sufferer she had been became the survivor she would be. She transfigured pain into joy. She was the light that illuminated. She transfigured them. She elevated them. She filled them. It solidified the cult of Garland worship, already in existence since the late Thirties, into The Church of Garland, which still exists via the internet to this day, devoted to what is inappropriately called "Judyism."20 The Church has its Goddess, Prophet and Pope. With rare exception, Church members, who call fellow members "one of our own,"21 are a consensual flock that follow beliefs based on the writings of the Prophet. Only certain writings are tolerated by the Pope. Some "get it,"22 some don't. Besmirching God Garland is sacrilegious, subject to excommunication.23 CDs, DVDs and books are referred to as "Judy product."24 According to Gerald Clarke, author of Get Happy:25 "I have never been able to understand why these people, almost none of whom ever knew her, think they have been ordained by heaven to be Judy's protectors and guardians. But then I have never been able to understand cults, and that is what we're talking about […]. Deviate an inch from the accepted dogma, and you've committed something equivalent to the Albigensian Heresy. Isn't it ironic, though, that Judy, who lived to entertain and give pleasure, is now worshipped by people so full of anger and hate?"26 The Carnegie Hall recording is certainly a sacred document. The first CD edition of the concert was released in 1986 in a "special abridged compact disc version of the two record set"27 that contained one CD, comprising twenty-two tracks and totaling 1:13:54.28 The uproar caused by the mutilation of the recording caused Capitol to reissue it in 1989, this time as a double CD containing twenty-six tracks and totaling 1:49:20.29 It should be recalled that the original LP, although containing all of the songs that Garland sang at the performance, was far from an untouched transfer of the master. Not only did the double LP eliminate some of Garland's between-song patter, much of which is devastatingly funny, it changed the song order.30 The engineer who mastered the LP, still unknown today,31 also added reverb to the rather dry sound, giving the listener the impression that he was in Carnegie Hall. Worse, the 1961 LP speeded up the master tape to make it fit a 2-record album, thereby rendering Garland's and the orchestra's pitch somewhat higher.32 Capitol kept the same inaccurate track order for their 1989 CD release, albeit restoring the correct speed. For that edition, however, vault researchers at Capitol could not locate the master to "Alone Together."33 They took Garland's 1960 studio recording of the same tune,34 added reverb à la Carnegie Hall, et voilà! You can fool some of the people some of the time. DCC's 24-Karat Gold 2000 audiophile remastering corrects all of these flaws. Disc one contains the first half of the show, 12 tracks including the overture. Disc two contains the second half, fourteen titles, and restores the order as performed. The pitch of the recording is correct, and all of Garland's clowning and story-telling have been left in. Disc one has a running time of 51:12; disc two 1:11:47; totaling 2:02:59. The public can now hear the famed performance from when the tape recorders were turned on to when they were turned off. Further, DCC a & r chief Steve Hoffman, who remastered the new edition, states in a technical note in the booklet: "Where the original engineers changed reels, we left a one-second lapse in the program, rather than attempt to smooth the gap over with over-dubbed applause." Thus, there are gaps between "If Love Were All"35 and "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart,"36 as well as around "Alone Together," which was "found"37 for the DCC set. Hoffman told ICE38: "Every second of that concert is here. And the tapes were in excellent shape, like the day they were made." Having given the tapes what he calls a "light remix" for this release, he adds: "It's nice hearing her not squashed and buried in the mix of the orchestra. She's out in front now, a lot louder than the orchestra. It's like she's standing right there. […] Also, most other versions of this album added fake echo and fake applause to smooth over the rough spots. But we're presenting it just the way it sounded that night - no fake echo, no fake applause." Finally, the original LP liner notes (by an unnamed author) have been included, as well as the radiant onstage photos of Garland by Joe Covello. Preeminent Garland scholar Scott Schechter has added an insightful new essay to place the recording in historical perspective. Here is the raw performance. Garland faithful claimed that the LP had not captured what they had heard. For them, Judy at Carnegie Hall was an event, a revival meeting, an emotionally riveting moment. They had been touched by grace that evening. The 1961 LP was no more than a second-best souvenir. To others not privileged enough to have attended, Judy at Carnegie Hall was an LP. To the criticism that the LP was wrongly pitched, they retorted that it made the experience of listening to it more exciting, a rush. To the criticism that the LP eliminated all of Garland's remarkable story-telling, they replied that going from one song to the next with hardly a moment to breathe made the experience of listening to it shocking, mind-boggling, richer. To the criticism that the LP had been equalized, they countered that all recordings are equalized. Is adding reverb and balance a crime? Is what's raw perfect? Is one reality more truthful than another? The most noticeable difference between the original Carnegie Hall and DCC's is that Garland's voice is now far more prominent than on any earlier release. That is, the producer of the 1961 LP mixed her voice to blend with the orchestra. The new Hoffman remastering is "in your face" to such a degree that when she sings the first words to her opening number, "When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You),"39 the listener used to the mix of the original may be jolted from his seat. This is no doubt how Garland sounded to those sitting in the hall. The original LP, they claimed, had been a treason to "the truth," a butchering of the ceremony. Participants can now happily rejoice that "the truth" has finally been restored. Twenty-first century followers to The Church of Garland can now rejoice that the original LP has been stripped of its varnish to reveal its unspoiled beauty. Many of the Rhino reissues of Garland's MGM soundtracks do the same: where separate optical multistems still exist and true stereo remixes have been completed,40 Garland's voice has been boosted compared to earlier composite mono soundtracks. The reason why remasterers in the Nineties and Naughts have chosen to spotlight her voice whereas 1961 producer Andy Wiswell chose to make it more a part of the orchestra is simple: the on-going iconization of Judy Garland. More a socio-cultural phenomenon than musical, this insidious process is occurring now and not earlier because those now in charge prefer Garland the entertainer to Garland the artist. The cult rules; The Church of Garland presides. The Church raptures over I Could Go On Singing (1962), Garland's last film, or Presenting Lily Mars (1943), a mediocre MGM picture, wherein she is very much the star. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), wherein she is a player among others even if still the lead, is less talked about. Garland's "glorious black and white"41 non-singing roles - The Clock (1945), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), A Child is Waiting (1962) - also offer fascinating glimpses of the dramatic actress that are quite different from the singing and dancing mold she was stuck in. Garland, when freed of the restrictions others judged best for her, gave us a glimmer of what she could have gone on to do. Putting Judy Garland in her place - whether as a singing star or an object of worship - is still going on today. Garland at her peak meant music flowed through her. The joy she felt in singing some of the great tunes of her generation glowed more strongly than ever on April 23, 1961. That jubilation was so contagious that the audience could not help but sing along with her on the "Olio" medley42 near the end of the show, heard on the original LP and 1989 CD. Their participation, which was a result of boosting the hall during the 1961 mastering, is sacrificed in the new non-mastering - again in the name of purity. Such joyless piousness contradicts the very essence of the evening and Judy Garland, but is typical of The Church of Garland. As the greatest musical talent of her generation, Judy Garland couldn't be touched. That does not mean that her recordings are untouchable. The art of remastering seems to have been lost on those who feel that such an act places the engineer between the Garland deity and the congregation. If the engineer doesn't interfere, the listener is closer to God. And this is what The Church of Garland wants. To the flock, what is sacred cannot be remastered; what is perfect cannot be perfected. That is why the 1961 Wiswell/Arnold Capitol mastering, as correctly pitched in the 1989 version, is superior to the 2000 Hoffman DCC, which fits the mold of The Church of Garland dogma by accident or by intent.43 What was magic in 1961 has gone flat in 2000. Despite that her voice was re-equalized into the orchestra, despite that reverb was added to give you more of a feel of the acoustics in Carnegie Hall, and despite that applause was overdubbed, the earlier mix made Garland a musical event not an iconographical one. Transferring the raw masters of Judy at Carnegie Hall to CD infers that God Garland is untouchable. Judyism in the name of Judy Garland is a betrayal. Those who preach it are fundamentalists. Judy Garland is music, not religion. Reviewed by Lawrence Schulman. © 2001 Lawrence Schulman, ARSC Journal Reprinted by permission Endnotes
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