Just one of those things

Among connoisseurs of the Hollywood musical, a special ring in hell is reserved for songwriter biopics of the 1940s, which followed two inviolable rules -- tone down the Jewishness (imagine the brainstorming that cast Tom Drake and Mickey Rooney as Rodgers and Hart in “Words and Music”), and avoid any indication of polymorphous sexuality (hence the straight or straightened Cary Grant as Cole Porter in the largely fictitious “Night and Day”).

In the marginally less fictitious “De-Lovely,” Kevin Kline’s Cole Porter says of the earlier film, “If I can survive this movie, I can survive anything.” And Porter did survive it for 18 pain-ridden but often creative years. “De-Lovely” might have proved fatal.

“Night and Day” ignored Porter’s partiality for men. Big deal. “De-Lovely” degrades his genius for songwriting -- a far graver dereliction. “Night and Day’s” wall-to-wall music was ably performed by singers who, excepting Mary Martin and Ginny Simms, were not well known then and are entirely forgotten now. Yet they imbued the songs with a glowing conviction.

“De-Lovely” gives Porter’s music plenty of screen time, but here the interpretations denude it of all its wonders: melodic distinction, harmonic ingenuity, rhythmic elan, erotic subversion, debonair wit, unconstrained gaiety.

The producers slipped on the oldest banana peel in show business, recruiting inappropriate performers in the hope of making a historic work look au courant. Most of these singers handle Porter’s lyrics as though they were learned phonetically; they mangle his expressive melodies like melisma-addled amateurs who, unable to hit a note on the button, sidle into it -- usually with a groan to let you know how involved they are.

Many contemporaries can do or might have done justice to Porter’s art (Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves, Michael Feinstein, Karrin Allyson, Cassandra Wilson, Mary Cleere Haran, Rebecca Luker, Sting, Allan Harris and Madonna, not to mention a certain Mr. Bennett, come to mind), including two who are in the picture -- Diana Krall and Natalie Cole.

The former is undermined by a lifeless arrangement and relegated to background ambience, leaving only the latter to shine with a rendition of “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” that, significantly, recalls classic renditions by Ella Fitzgerald and Betty Carter.

Porter will survive this too -- he survives everything. No songwriter is more frequently rediscovered, decade after decade, always with renewed surprise at the depth and breadth of his work.

Repeated revivals

In the years after his crippling 1937 equestrian accident (which “De-Lovely” stages as cosmic punishment for the sexual indulgences it pretends to absolve), he scattered some of his finest songs in uneven stage shows, until the 1948 masterpiece “Kiss Me, Kate” spurred the first Porter renaissance.

The second occurred only eight years later, when in quick succession a woefully expurgated film version (the second) of “Anything Goes” was offset by the smash double album “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook” (one of the bestselling jazz albums of all time) and the film “High Society,” in which Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly introduced Cole’s last million-seller, “True Love.”

In “De-Lovely,” Porter composes “True Love” in the 1920s, deriding it as froufrou designed to please his wife; in truth, he took pride in its waltzing simplicity, subtle diminished chords and great popularity and hoped in vain it would win him an Oscar.

Although his songs sparked a dozen films, Porter had never been an easy fit for Hollywood. His 1932 stage show “Gay Divorce” was adapted as a 1934 vehicle for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, “The Gay Divorcee,” with all but one of his songs cut.

A couple of years later, Ethel Merman joined Crosby to bring Broadway authenticity to the first film of “Anything Goes,” and the censors went nuclear. “All Through the Night” was killed because of the line “You and your love bring me ecstasy” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” because it might have offended religious propriety.

A hack lyricist was hired to rewrite the title song, but it was still nervously relegated to background music for the credits; “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “You’re the Top” were cleaned up. Only four of Porter’s songs were Oscar-nominated -- he never won.

After his death in 1964, cabaret singers Bobby Short and Mabel Mercer generated another Porter revival, which was given weight in 1971 by the publication of Robert Kimball’s anthology of lyrics, “Cole.”

A more comprehensive collection, in 1983, seemed to trigger additional interest, generating records and shows and culminating in “Kiss Me Kate’s” 1999 return to Broadway.

It’s easy to see why Porter keeps coming back. Like Irving Berlin, he wrote words and music, but unlike the self-taught Berlin, Porter was a trained and erudite composer. His lyrics, with their irreverent topical references, work as superior light verse (now the esteemed Library of America is contemplating a Porter anthology), while his melodies are structurally complicated yet listener-friendly.

The current revival is attested to by three Porter compilations on Billboard’s jazz chart, in addition to the film soundtrack’s high ranking on the pop chart. Notwithstanding Natalie Cole, the last can safely be ignored except as a how-not-to -- the prime offenders being Sheryl Crow, whose “Begin the Beguine” is morbidly tenuous, and Alanis Morissette, whose whirring vibrato on “Let’s Do It” recalls Alvin the chipmunk, except that Alvin sang in tune. There is a correct way to sing Porter, much as there is a correct way to act Shakespeare -- and they are not dissimilar. In both instances, the first order of business is mastery of, though not obeisance to, the text.

Melding of performances

The recent compilations are quite good, especially “It’s De-Lovely: The Authentic Cole Porter Collection” (Bluebird), a shrewd melding of vocal and instrumental performances. The latter includes Artie Shaw’s sublime 1938 big band recording of “Begin the Beguine,” arranged by Jerry Gray as a concerto for clarinet. Here is the ultimate example of a song so daunting in length and melodic/rhythmic innovations that the record label tried to discourage Shaw from recording it at all. Yet the combination of a firmly percussive grounding and Shaw’s dramatically elated interpretation made it the No. 1 disc of its day.

In a more modern context, Sonny Rollins’ 1962 “You Do Something to Me” shows the saxophonist’s highly distinctive embellishments elaborating the original melody. The vocalists include such incomparable Porterphiles as Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney. Also included is the spooky 1930 “What Is This Thing Called Love?” by the Leo Reisman Orchestra, featuring an uncanny Bubber Miley trumpet solo.

The other new collections, “Ultra-Lounge: Cocktails with Cole Porter” (Capitol) and “The Very Best of Cole Porter” (Hip-O), are built almost entirely around singers from jazz and pop who breathed the air in which the songs were written. They thrive on minor-key melodies and exult in the impertinence of the lyrics. The delights include Kay Starr’s charged “C’est Magnifique,” Sarah Vaughan’s affecting “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye,” Nat Cole’s suave “Just One of Those Things” and Ella Fitzgerald’s and Duke Ellington’s intoxicating “Let’s Do It” on Ultra-Lounge; and Fitzgerald’s scalding “Too Darn Hot,” Peggy Lee’s dynamic “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” Jeri Southern’s sweetly declarative “It’s De-Lovely,” Anita O’Day’s knowing “Just One of Those Things” and Dinah Washington’s blistering “I Get a Kick Out of You” on the more adventurous “The Very Best of Cole Porter.”

But don’t stop there. Two older Verve collections worth looking for are “I Get a Kick Out of You: The Cole Porter Songbook Volume II” (the usual suspects plus Louis Armstrong, Shirley Horn, Blossom Dearie, Betty Carter) and “Cole Porter in Concert: Just One of Those Live Things” (concert performances by Ella and Sarah as well as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, Art Tatum). Any list of definitive Porter records would have to include Sinatra’s rambunctious “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (on “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers,” Capitol), Crosby and the Andrews Sisters’ playful “Don’t Fence Me In” (on “Bing’s Gold Records,” MCA) and Clooney’s daring “Why Shouldn’t I?” (on “Love,” Reprise), as well as such full-bore explorations as Fitzgerald’s 1956 Verve set, in which her insights into Porter surprised even her most ardent fans, and 1982’s “Rosemary Clooney Sings the Music of Cole Porter” (Concord Jazz). No one could invest a lyric with more layers of meaning than Clooney. Listen to the way she changed the pronouns on “I Concentrate on You” to underscore the erotic tension:

Your smile so sweet, so tender

When at first your kiss I decline,

The light in your eyes when I surrender

And once again our arms intertwine.

Like the other great Porter interpreters, she knows this is music for grown-ups and that desire, with or without consummation, aces self-pity every time. In “De-Lovely,” clueless singers reduce everything to dress-up and pretense. Porter’s music is too rich, droll, provocative and serious for pretense of any kind.

Gary Giddins is a critic-author whose first volume of his Bing Crosby biography was published in 2001. Contact Giddins at C[email protected].