Why I'm in love with Barbara Cook
So much so, in fact, that I felt if it would be wiser to wait a little while before writing about the singer's concert Saturday at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. That way I wouldn't just gush all over the place. No such luck. Stand by for gushing. Miss Cook, who just turned 85, was in marvelous, heartwarming form in this long overdue return to Baltimore. She may not have looked spry as she walked onstage, with the aid of a cane. And she sat for the whole concert, due to back problems. But that was as far as the age thing went. And, really, the sitting only made the concert seem more intimate, as if we had all been invited to Miss Cook's Upper West Side apartment for a little music. Of course the soprano's voice has changed over time, but there remains an unwavering gleam in the timbre. And, as I have been reminded each time I have heard her live, the essence beneath that tonal surface is the same, revealing a soul that continues to zero in effortlessly and compellingly on the contour of a melody, the truth of a lyric. The program -- backed by the suave and subtle combo of Ted Rosenthal (piano), Lawrence Feldman (woodwinds), Baltimore native Jay Leonhart (bass), Warren Odze (percussion) -- was drawn largely from Miss Cook's latest album, "Lover Man." That release makes a worthy addition to her discography, but ... 
Intermingled with her saucy, lightly Georgia-accented commentary (she dropped the f-bomb at one point and took infectious delight in reading a list of absurd country song titles), Miss Cook went through the repertoire with evident glee. The swinging tunes swung gently, among them "Makin' Whoopie," which seemed a little funnier and naughtier than ever, thanks to the color and rhythmic playfulness in the singer's phrasing. The ballads, each one sculpted with the incisiveness of a Callas, included an exquisite "If I Love Again" and "The Nearness of You," not to mention an intriguing fusion of "House of the Rising Sun" and "Bye Bye Blackbird." One of the highest of the highlights was "Lover Man," a song most associated with Billie Holiday (I associate it more with the other Barbra in my life, the one with the missing 'a,' but that's just me). What Miss Cook did with the phrase "strange as it may seem" was stunning. She timed it so tellingly, making you wait for it a few extra beats. Then she infused those five words with palpable hope and fear, the bittersweet resignation of someone all too used to dreaming of a love ever out of reach. Miss Cook wiped away a few tears in that song and a couple of others (when she teared up, I teared up) -- "Here's to Life," which she made remarkably personal and encompassing; and her un-amplified encore, "Imagine." Her account of that John Lennon song, so natural and poetic, had a mesmerizing effect on the hall, one more indelible moment in a concert that reconfirmed the national treasure status of Barbara Cook -- and one more reason why I'm so unabashedly in love with, and in awe of, this disarming artist.
