Johnny Mercer Jamboree

CHIP DEFFAA, who conceived and produced this celebration of Johnny Mercer, describes the project: 'Johnny Mercer may well have written the lyrics for more hit songs than any songwriter in history. As many know, he was far too prolific-he wrote far too quickly-to limit himself to ever working exclusively with a single composer as a partner. But he wrote songs with such many notable composers, including Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, and Richard Whiting. When the spirit moved him, he also composed his own melodies, besides crafting the lyrics-although he could neither read nor write music. (A musician would have to transcribe for him melodies that he hummed or sang.) I wanted to produce a concise, focused revue of Mercer's songs-using his songs, sung by a hand-picked group of singing actors, to help tell his story. 'The idea for actually going ahead and producing a Mercer revue was given to me, as chance would have it, by the late artist and writer Patsy Broderick (the mother of actor Matthew Broderick), who mentioned to me a number of high-spirited, lesser-known early Mercer songs which she'd always loved as much as his classics. I started listening again to old recordings I had in my collection, and began putting together a song list. We launched the show at the Chip Deffaa Invitational Theater Festival on 42nd Street in New York City. 'This CD features the singers who performed in the original New York production--including Keith Anderson, Bobby Belfry, Joyce Breach, Carolyn Montgomery, Wendy Porter, Matthew Helton, Paul Bernhardt, and Christine Zino--plus some guest artists, including Farah Alvin and Jon Peterson, whio were added for the purposes of the recording. Hubert 'Tex' Arnold is the musical director/pianist and Jon Burr is the bassist.'