July 2, 2001

Few performers have plumbed the depths of the Billy Strayhorn legacy as passionately as Darius de Haas.

The actor proves to be a singer with an amazing vocal range and dexterity, and a performer who can reveal the sorrows, pains and joys of the composer's richly layered repertoire with an intensity and honesty that easily envelops and mesmerizes the listener.

An encore presentation of a Lincoln Center American Songbook concert last spring, the shift from concert hall to the cozy environs of Arci's Place provides a telling and invasive close-up of Strayhorn's music and lyrics. The intimacy illuminates both the heartbreak and pleasures of "Something to Live For" and "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," and the pieces reveal a new introspective poignancy.

De Haas has found the key to making jazz a theatrical experience.

Billy Strayhorn, who died in 1967, joined the Duke Ellington band in 1939 as composer, arranger and sometime pianist. He was a pivotal force in the band for three decades, and his influence lasted long after. De Haas sings the landmark hits, from a sultry "Satin Doll" and a jaunty "Just a Sittin' and a Rockin' " to the most recorded and notable of big-band signature tunes, "Take the 'A' Train." De Haas makes the journey to Harlem a slow, loping and picturesque one; it is soon followed by Strayhorn's dark portrait of night life with its intoxicating blend of "jazz and cocktails," "Lush Life." A wordless vocal frames "Chelsea Bridge," and it's far from the accustomed exercise in scat but rather a lyrical variation in sound and intricate vocalese.

In addition to the standards, there are some rarities, and they come as sweet surprises to devotees of the Ellington canon. From "Such Sweet Thunder," the Ellington-Strayhorn homage to Shakespeare, de Haas recites a sonnet and serenades "Pretty Girl," an ardent romance more formally known as "The Star-Crossed Lovers." Listening to "Love Came," a composition by Ellington and Strayhorn, it is difficult to determine where Duke left off and Strayhorn began. It is an ardent and poetic union of words and music, which de Haas embraces with an impressionable fervent ache.
Strayhorn's "Blood Count" -- the last piece written by the composer in a New York hospital bed shortly before his death -- has been given soulful lyrics by Elvis Costello; de Haas' performance of the song was serene, arresting. On a muggy, hot Manhattan evening, de Haas encored with a rare holiday piece by Strayhorn, "A Christmas Surprise," sung with studied reverence and grace.