Interview: JEFF HARNAR on A COLLECTIVE CY album and concerts at The Pheasantry

Award-winning vocalist Jeff Harnar recently released his album ‘A Collective Cy: Jeff Harnar Sings Cy Coleman’, featuring both hits and rarities from the Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award-winning composer of Sweet Charity, City of Angels and more. Jeff will celebrate the new album with two special London concerts The Pheasantry on 27 & 28 September. We caught up with Jeff about his current and upcoming projects.

Where did the idea for this album come from?

The idea for the show ‘A Collective Cy’ came first. Alex Rybeck, my director Sara Louise Lazarus, and I first created the show in 2006 for an engagement at Feinstein’s at the Regency. The intention as we selected songs was that it would also be a logical next album. PS Classics was onboard in 2006 but alas, the finances were not. It’s been a lesson in ‘Baby, Dream Your Dream’, … and that if your dream doesn’t come true at first, it may come true at last. Here we are 17 years later fulfilling this long-held dream.

When did you first come across Cy Coleman? What was the first musical of his that you saw?

My family was living in the suburbs of Manhattan in 1966 when Sweet Charity was new on Broadway. My parents gave me the cast album. A remarkable gift for a 7-year-old given the subject matter! I saw a community theater production not long after and the show absolutely fulfilled the vibrancy of that original cast album. The first original Broadway production of Cy’s that I saw was City of Angels. It was genius! The concept, the score, the production - just thrilling. I was fortunate enough to also see The Life and The Will Rogers Follies.

Why do you think the music of Cy Coleman has stood the test of time so well?

As for Cy’s theater music, he had a remarkable gift to disappear into the needs of a particular score, making himself a musical chameleon. He wrote jazz for City of Angels, R&B for The Life, comic operetta for On the Twentieth Century, and so on. Cy is one composer very difficult to pin down. You know when you’re hearing Sondheim. You know when you’re hearing Jerry Herman. Cy’s musical personality was always in service to the piece, and those pieces have stood the test of time. As a pop song writer, he paired with brilliant lyricists, such as Carolyn Leigh, whose timeless lyrics kept the songs perpetually relevant.

What was your favourite song on the album to record?

The duets with Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway are profoundly meaningful to me. We three were high school friends, performing in the musicals together back in the 1970’s. That these two now Tony Award nominated stars made these musical reunions happen for me and came to the studio on the same day is a memory I will cherish. And I’m absolutely thrilled with how both of those duets turned out.

How did you decide on which songs to include?

Whether for the show or the album, the lyrics came first. I need to feel like I’m a believable narrator for the words I’m singing. Every lyric has a personal resonance to me, including my decision to sing the correct pronouns. This may be one of the first openly gay recordings of ‘It Amazes Me’ because of that.

Are there any other Cy Coleman numbers that you love that didn't quite make the cut for this album?

We recorded two that we thought ultimately didn’t serve the album. One was a put together of ‘Hey Look Me Over’ and ‘Hey, There Good Times’, which opens the stage show. The other is a rare Cy Coleman music and lyric, a song called ‘Somebody’, also from our stage version. Both numbers play important roles in the arc of the show ‘A Collective Cy’, but felt mismatched with the album’s overall vibe. Two more tracks to add to my “trunk songs” from our various album. Maybe all of those will be released in a future potpourri collection.

You've recorded the songs and now you're about to perform them live in concert. How do you think the experience of listening to live music and recorded music differs, if at all?

Cy once said he was “addicted to show business,” and the live show of ‘A Collective Cy’ includes several numbers specifically there to add humor and, or as Cy would say, “schtick.” In making a studio album, we’ve had the gift of shaping a very different experience for the listener, much more intimate, because the recording audience is quite literally, one set of ears.

What can people expect from the album and from your concerts at The Pheasantry?

To quote one of Cy’s favorite Carolyn Leigh lyrics, “All I want in this world is some kind of music that my heart can listen to and cheer.” It is our collective wish to conjure for the audience, in the words of Dorothy Field’s from Sweet Charity … “Fun, laughs, good times.”

For more information on the album and upcoming concerts, please click here.