Piano Bar
While not a soundtrack per se, this suite of songs was inspired by Claude Lelouche'sAnd Now...Ladies and Gentlemen(2001). In the film, French singing star Patricia Kaas portrays a nightclub chanteuse suffering from a brain tumor who falls for a similarly afflicted thief (played by Jeremy Irons.) Given the plotline, it¹s not surprising that the tunes are drawn primarily from the classic chanson tradition. But strangely, Kaas interprets most of them in the maudlin English translations once favored by the Rat Pack, Rod McKuen, and Bobby Darin. Even so, and despite her consistently over-cautious phrasing, the vocals are attractively languid and husky, inflected with a dead-pan world-weariness that Marlene Dietrich would have recognized. However, it would be pleasant to hear Kaas essay this repertoire in a more intimate, warm-toned setting. As it is, her voice is periodically overwhelmed by echo plus poorly calibrated electric bass and keyboard lines.--Christina Roden