★★★☆☆
(Concord Records)
What’s wrong with a bit of old-fashioned schmaltz? When you’re Grammy-nominated pianist, composer and arranger David Benoit, and you’ve enlisted esteemed New York chanteuse Jane Monheit to sing on your thirty-fifth album and first recording with a vocalist, apparently nothing. Here, then, are songs of love, light and the way-we-were, with lyrics set to tunes imbued with all the cool-headed swing of Bacharach and Bernstein. The pitch perfect Monheit shines throughout, most notably on Broadway-esque belter ‘Fly Away’ and melancholy ballad ‘The Songs We Sang’, while Benoit proves a sensitive accompanist, aided by a rhythm section and on a waltz, guest string players. A lovely work marred by its closing track, a solo piano piece merging ‘Love Theme from Candide’ with ‘Send in the Clowns’, which really is a schmaltz too far.
