One Night Only: Barbra Streisand and Quartet at The Village Vanguard Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

One Night Only: Barbra Streisand and Quartet at The Village Vanguard Blu-ray Movie Review

Streisand's uncharacteristically rough in a few spots on this short concert, but the magic is still undeniably there.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 16, 2010

Barbra Streisand has become such an institution, perhaps more than “merely” iconic, that it seems incredible that she was once an unknown, plying her trade in lounges and clubs before she hit the big time. Though the public at large may associate her “big break” with Funny Girl, and while it certainly can’t be denied that Fanny Brice was the role which catapulted her to national renown, Broadway cognoscenti actually know that Streisand stole the show in a little remembered flop from a couple of years before the Styne-Merrill tuner hit the boards, Harold Rome’s I Can Get It For You Wholesale. As harried secretary Miss Marmelstein, Streisand brought the house down with her eponymous character song, a paean to the working woman who blends in to the office background and is fated to always be called be her surname. The song and the character allowed Streisand ample opportunity for the mugging that often accompanied her early performances, mugging that no doubt helped convince the powers that be that she would be perfect to play the part of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. And the rest, as they say, is history. But for a little while before even Wholesale, Streisand was out on the road performing at small rooms, mostly in the East, building that fierce reputation that would carry her through the next several decades.

No female singer has so dominated her generation for so long in popular music as has Streisand. Sure, you can mention other icons like Judy Garland, but the sad fact is Judy had peaked, at least for the first time, by the late 40’s, and though she hit career highs throughout the 50’s and 60’s, they were sporadic at best (and technically hardly ever at the level of her earlier vocals), only very rarely catapulting her to the top of the charts, a feat Streisand has managed to repeat regularly since her first albums appeared in the early 60’s. No, Streisand is quite simply a singular sensation, the likes of which may never be seen or heard again. That has endeared her to a rabid legion of fans, while simultaneously making her the dragon lady of contemporary music and filmmaking, two industries typically run by ego driven males who don’t like their territory encroached upon. Babs hasn’t much cared, offering her own imperious attitude when she’s been confronted by a patriarchal hierarchy that’s sought to categorize her as this or that. While those early Columbia albums bear the imprint of then standardized arrangements and repertoire, Streisand was always obviously a cut above vocally, and always managed to eke out every last nuance of phrasing and interpretation, even in songs we had heard a million times before. Often she brought stunning new ideas to her arrangements, as in the lovely, lyrical ballad reading of one of her first hits, “Happy Days are Here Again.” (In fact it was a then rare moment of Garland genius during Judy’s short-lived CBS variety series to do a medley with Streisand of that tune where Garland slowed down her own upbeat anthem, “Get Happy,” sung in counterpoint).

Nobody sings like Streisand.

And so it really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to see Streisand appearing at a small, intimate venue this late in her career. After all, the woman has spent decades defying expectations, even her own self-imposed ones, as she has made no secret of her stage fright of performing live, something that kept her from a concert tour for years. Those fears seem completely unfounded from the apparently at ease, if at times slightly mannered (you expected anything else from a diva of this magnitude?), performance offered up in One Night Only. This wonderful, up close and personal performance finds Streisand performing back in her old neighborhood of Greenwich Village, at the redoubtable Village Vanguard, in a concert taped on September 26, 2009. It was at a 1961 amateur night at the Vanguard that a teenaged Streisand first took the stage and wowed an audience with her singing prowess. In fact, first up before La Streisand even takes the stage is the Vanguard’s owner, Lorraine Gordon (widow of the legendary Max Gordon, who opened the club back in the 1930’s), who is verklempt to see a packed house full of celebrities like the Clintons (all three of them), Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, James Brolin, tons of Streisand’s close personal friends, and a smattering of hoi polloi who managed to finagle tickets via a contest for the event. Lorraine then hands the microphone to the Vanguard waiter who more or less pushed Streisand on the Vanguard stage all those years ago, offering a nice spoken prelude remembering the early days, when Streisand thought of herself more as an actress who sang, rather than vice versa. The trifecta of “opening acts” finishes with Streisand’s longtime manager Marty Erlichman, who tells a touching and funny story about how he managed to sign Streisand. Finally, the woman herself takes the stage, and the music begins.

This may be sacrilege to some, but Streisand herself confesses that she hadn’t sung since January 2009 before this concert was taped, so don’t shoot the messenger: she sounds mostly marvelous, with a nicely burnished low end the result of her advancing age, and the same clear as a bell mid- and higher ranges, but, believe it or not, her voice cracks a time or two in the early songs, as she warms up vocally. It’s to Streisand’s credit that her façade itself never cracks, she musters through to complete each tune, but it’s still somewhat disconcerting (no pun intended) to hear a singer of this stature actually falter, however slightly. By about one third of the way through her hour-plus set, she’s more warmed up, with the cracking replaced by the raspy faux-rock grit she displayed on tunes like “Space Captain” from her one album with the female rock group Fanny (Barbra Joan Streisand). Aside from these unexpected moments, the Streisand instrument is as perfectly liquid as it’s always been. Yes, as with a lot of singers now reaching or past Social Security benefits, the keys have been shifted down (I had to laugh at a cutaway to the chart for “Evergreen,” which had been lowered a major third, with a handwritten scrawl written above the printed chord symbols). And, yes, Streisand herself cheats at times, rephrasing moments to keep from exposing her topmost range. But you know what? It simply doesn’t matter—she is such a gifted vocalist, with such an incredible technique, that it flows beautifully and hits emotional climax after emotional climax.

Streisand’s interstitial monologues are sometimes interesting, sometimes annoying, and she has the bad habit of talking both during songs and, more unforgivably to this pianist-reviewer, over the wonderful soloing of her own keyboard player, Tamir Hendelman. As someone who has accompanied many a diva who at least thought they were in Streisand’s league, I can only offer my condolences to Tamir for this probably unintended slight. His playing is light, effective, and extremely colorful, and even Streisand herself offers a passing, “Isn’t he great?” on one of her encores. The rest of the band, while very understated, is also excellent, including bassist Jeff Carney, guitarist Brian Koonin and drummer Ray Marchica.

In a career as vast and expansive as Streisand’s has been, it’s probably impossible to craft a playlist that is going to please everybody. The interesting thing here is the glut of Rodgers and Hart material, from the relatively obscure (“Nobody’s Heart Belongs to Me”) to the (forgive me) evergreens like “My Funny Valentine” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” Streisand pays homage to my own favorite lyricists, the ineffable husband and wife team of Marilyn and Alan Bergman (both of whom are in attendance), offering both their lovely “Where Do You Start?”, written with Johnny Mandel, and one of Streisand’s most enduring classics, the Marvin Hamlisch-composed “The Way We Were.” The rest of the set is really rather diverse, all things considered, ping ponging from relatively unknown gems like “Here’s to Life” to the underappreciated “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” to Luiz Bonfa’s lovely bossa nova “Gentle Rain” to Jacques Brel’s “If You Go Away,” which Streisand sings in English and French.

This really turns out to be an evening of memories. Streisand is surrounded by an adoring gaggle of her close personal friends and collaborators, and the entire performance plays out more like a private house concert than a public club outing. It reveals the softer, more intimate and yes even vulnerable side of Streisand. Despite a vocal fluff or two, this is the sort of live show that will only further Streisand’s seemingly insurmountable reputation. Streisand remains as powerful and magically poised as ever, and One Night Only captures that magic and power in visceral detail.

The entire set list consists of:

Introductions
Here's to Life
In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
Gentle Rain
Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most
If You Go Away
Where Do You Start
Nobody's Heart Belongs to Me
Make Someone Happy
My Funny Valentine
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Evergreen
Some Other Time
The Way We Were

One Night Only: Barbra Streisand and Quartet at The Village Vanguard Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

One Night Only doesn't offer a whale of a lot to get excited about with a competent and well detailed AVC encode delivered in 1080p and a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This is basically a three camera setup capturing a live performance, with the singer and band all clad in black. No incredibly eye popping palette here, to be sure. But black levels are consistent and nicely deep, with good shadow detail. Flesh tones are accurate and the close ups reveal every fly away hair and perfectly manicured nail adorning Ms. Streisand. Some of the cutaways to the audience are surprisingly soft, which I'm assuming is due to the dim lighting of the club and the placement of the minimal stage lights. All in all, nothing to write home about, but really nothing to complain about, either. What you're really here for is the music, right?

One Night Only: Barbra Streisand and Quartet at The Village Vanguard Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

One Night Only offers two lossless tracks, an LPCM 2.0 stereo mix and a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. Both of these tracks are surprisingly bass heavy, by which I mean the upright bass played by Jeff Carney. This is a mix issue, not a track issue, but forewarned is fore-eared. The good news is both of these offerings have absolutely no distortion whatsoever despite the omnipresent low end, which is frequently punctuated by Carney's finger plucking. The piano sounds warm and vibrant, with no tinniness, and the drums (almost always brushes) and guitar are nicely layered into the overall mix. The 5.1 offers some very nice separation of these instruments, giving a very apt aural illusion of being up on stage with La Streisand. As for the "girl singer" (as she called jokingly in an introductory comment), she sounds gorgeous here, though it sounds to me like after the cracks in the first few tunes, the engineer may have boosted her microphone levels and reverb just a bit. Overall, though, the range of frequencies here is supported admirably by both the lossless tracks. You may simply want to adjust your home theater system to be a little lighter on the bass side if the low end heaviness bothers you.

One Night Only: Barbra Streisand and Quartet at The Village Vanguard Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

A brief, though interesting, Vanguard Vignette (6:47) offers Lorraine Gordon reminiscing about the history of the club and her first interactions with Barbra, intercut with little snippets from the concert itself.

One Night Only: Barbra Streisand and Quartet at The Village Vanguard Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

What can you say about a singer as legendary as Barbra Streisand that hasn't already been said? Despite being well ensconced in her sixties now, she still retains a remarkably supple and expressive voice. She's at ease and mostly engaging in this hour-plus evening, and it's easy to overlook the occasional vocal problems when you're offered the opportunity to get this up close and personal with one of the all time greats of contemporary music. Though the concert is really pretty brief, this Blu-ray is recommended to fans and even casual listeners. It's an interesting trip through the Great American songbook, with a detour or two through international waters, and it returns Streisand to the lounge roots where her career took flight almost 50 years ago.