Customer Reviews

Secret Love: the Music of Doris Day

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This is one of three Doris Day tribute albums that I own. All are brilliant, but in different ways. None of them are straight copies and there are fewer songs that they share in common than one might expect. Karen's interest in Doris's music was really stirred when she heard some of the early jazzy recordings that Doris made with Les Brown. Karen firmly believes that Doris is not taken as seriously as she should be, so this album avoids anything lightweight. The style of the album is jazz, using piano, bass, drums, guitar, tenor sax and flugelhorn.

Whatever will be will be (Que sera sera) is given a completely different arrangement, created especially for Karen, which brings out the true meaning of the song. The result is impressive. Karen states that two her favorite albums are Duet and Day by night. Doris recorded Close your eyes twice, once for each of those albums. Karen's version opens this set. Yes and Nobody's heart are two other songs on Duet that Karen covered for this album, which also includes The night we called it a day from Day by night.

Secret love, I'll never stop loving you, It's magic and Sentimental journey are four famous classics here, all exquisitely covered by Karen. I'm not sure if How are things in Glocca Morra? really belongs in this collection, but I love that song as much as Karen does, and Doris did actually sing the song.

With eighteen tracks, all of them wonderful, this is a great tribute to Doris. It is my first Karen Oberlin album, but it certainly won't be my last.

Probably because she first came to my attention as a movie star--and as the polar opposite of the screen sirens who stirred the hormones of a teen-aged boy--Doris Day somehow never reached me as a singer. It's been only in recent years that her voice, with its consistency, vibrancy, power and freshness, inerrant pitch and sublime musicality, has led me to collect her recordings. There's no question in my mind now that she was the real deal--a seasoned trouper who learned her craft in the '40's and could hold her own in front of any of the big bands--probably even without a microphone. There's an "edge" to every one of her performances, but nothing was forced. Moreover, as anyone who has seen her as Calamity Jane knows, she was the complete package: the voice, the persona (if that's an accurate term for so natural a presence), and the indomitable, unflagging spirit were all one.

Karen Oberlin's generous album (18 tunes!) is both a heartfelt homage to the great forebearer and a sparkling and highly personal set of performances that would do any present-day singer proud. She replaces Doris's tightly spinning vibrato with a smoother, more "contemporary," tone and employs more dynamic contrasts than Doris, allowing today's sensitive microphones to catch subtle shadings and vocal inflections. On "Que Sera," for example, the second "will be" in "whatever will be, will be" becomes not a repetitious iamb but an unexpected trochee in the artist's playful, dramatically effective emphasis on "will." On "It's Magic" she practically makes us associate the magical with the miraculous in her slight pause and then embracing of the critical word.

Credit, too, the always surprising arrangements of pianist Peter Firth and the sensitive accompaniment provided by two of New York's finest--David Fink (ironically, a favorite bassist of Andre Previn, who accompanied Doris on one of her most memorable albums) and Kenny Washington (also the preferred drummer of hard boppers like Johnny Griffin).

Oberlin includes the little-known jewels, such as R&H's "Nobody's Heart," alongside the '50's Hit Parade songs. But even the latter sound like staples in the Great American Songbook (newly minted ones at that) thanks to the inspired musicianship, good taste, and respect for the overseeing muse that is in abundant evidence throughout the project. The entire program is a labor of love, one that no listener (even someone who doesn't remember Doris) can't help but love.

This is without a doubt my favorite CD ever. I have been fortunate enough to hear Ms. Oberlin perform live many times in NYC and this CD almost captures the beauty of her live performances.

Her rendition of How Are Things in Glocca Morra is the greatest version ever sung. She now owns that song!!

Listen to the soft, dreamy, vocal styling of Karen Oberlin and it will take you back to a simpler, more romantic time. Listen, and you will be carried back to a little restaurant, a beautiful, vocalist at the piano, melting your heart. Many of these standards including, "I'll See You in My Dreams," are envisioned in the abstract...gathered in your memories...take the time to close your eyes and listen. Karen's performance is just so soothing. I listened to every facet of these classics, trying to find the dagger that will take me out of my "journey." It wasn't there. Oh yes, this is about Doris Day, or is it? I'm listening to Karen singing to me, right now. That's all that matters.

Karen Oberlin is not Doris Day. Her voice doesn't have energy or power, her range is narrow and often misses the tone sounding thin and weak. To do a whole album of someone like Doris Day - it should dazzle, but it does not.
It's not that I was expecting Doris Day - but that it would be an album that scintillated with it's own energy and would modernize the arrangements with a jazz sound. Doris's voice sparkled. In comparison this album is quite ordinary and Karen's voice in this sounds ordinary. I was disappointed.