Wendy Lands

Wendy Lands Sings the Music of The Pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman

This here album is by Wendy Lands (whom no one knows) singing tight, emotional songs written by composer Wladyslaw Szpilman (whom no one knows), who is the main character in the new film The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski (whom no one seems to remember). Good luck, CDUniverse.com, trying to sell this thing.

It's good, though. Lands' timbre is about the same as Lisa Loeb's. It is a natural, soft glide that is devoid of hard-life grains. But like Loeb, she works her voice into a Sunday-go-to-an-outdoor-festival tranquility that can make you want to dance mid-tempo if you're in the right, light mood. What helps her is that Szpilman's music is the territory of post-Cole Porter pop and jazz standards.

That is, Szpilman's songs are fun. There's some fiddle, plenty of piano and acoustic guitar work, and a range of torch songs and Western swing. His is clearly the work of someone who adored putting a Western sensibility into Eastern European roots. What is extraordinary is that Szpilman wrote some of these upbeat, or at least romantic, songs while he was trapped in the Nazi-fucks' Warsaw Ghetto in 1941.

It should be pointed out that Szpilman was responsible, though, for only the music, and not the lyrics. Lines were written by others. Yet, they fit. Lands herself co-wrote the words to the happy "True and Tender," which starts merrily, "When the world I knew/ Would crumble to the ground around me/ All you had to do/ Was come and put your arms around me/ Lost together." Knowing about Szpilman's ghetto past, her blind-love stylizing makes the song an untintentionally sad, but pretty tribute.--

Jack Sayre