EDITH PIAF at Carnegie Hall, January 13, 1957

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

A few years back, either for my mom’s birthday, or Christmas present, she asked me to get her the album Edith Piaf at Carnegie Call, or she didn’t know the actual title, but that it was recorded in New York City, and she sang some of her songs in English. I looked high and low, online and offline, and I couldn’t find this phantom album. My mom, Shirley Berman, passed away six months ago (January 8, the birthday of Bowie and Elvis), and I felt terrible that I couldn’t locate this recording for her while she was alive or in good health to enjoy such a record. Yesterday, looking at Instagram on the Record Safari postings, they showed the cover, where I ran almost 1 1/2 miles to see this album.

If you keep this a secret between us, Record Safari is my favorite local vinyl store. Alex, the co-owner and buyer, is a remarkable curator of their shop. They have been opened a tad over a year, and looking at my Discogs page, I can see I purchased 115 albums from the store within that period. And the latest purchase is mom-related, the great Edith’s performance captured at Carnegie Hall in 1957.

The minimal design on the cover focuses on everything equally. Some of the audience is on stage with Piaf, and you can view the hive in the theater and on the balcony. Two massive speakers face the spectators, and Edith is dead-center, facing her sold-out crowd. The orchestra and backup singers are hidden behind the curtain, and I can imagine that dramatic effect of seeing a singular figure behind a microphone, and that’s it. I can’t imagine sitting on the stage, either on the left or right of Piaf, and dealing with her intensity as a performer and singer. She has the audience on each side and in front; therefore, she is surrounded by the orchestra participants behind her and the listeners on the sides and front. There is something so perfect in this setup, and I think it’s surrounding her music and becoming part of the package or the essence of the beautiful songs.

Some tunes she sings in English from French or goes for her native language. But she gives an interpretation or a little narrative in English before each selection. Each song is an intense emotional sensibility with layers of romantic gestures and thoughts. Piaf sings a story, usually about the ador of a relationship and how that spells out into something darker. Edith Piaf is not an American performer who entertains all; she’s an artist with an intensity to convey the stories in her work that is compelling and without a wasted word or gesture.

The arrangements, conducting, and orchestration by Robert Chauvigny never overpower the vocalist, and it’s a superb blend of acoustic sound with the human voice riding along as if she was hitchhiking on a quiet but lonely highway. Also, the choir is beautifully presented, but it compliments the whole presentation like a bitter taste in a cocktail.

Sitting in my living room and playing this album loudly, I was hoping my mom could hear it from her urn in the room as well. I usually am not fond of regrets, but then again, some moments are unavoidable, and Piaf is the queen of regrets symbolically, but like my mom, she faced the present with her chin up and onward to the next landscape.