The Soft Romantic Moods of Geoff Love, his Orchestra and Singers
Geoff Love and his Orchestra’s IN A ROMANTIC MOOD from EMI’s ‘Compacts for Pleasure’ series is a 1989 compilation made up from several of his romantic themed LPs from the 1970s. Ironically, the musical arrangements do not seem to have been inspired by the pop music of that decade. Instead Geoff Love does it his way. Plenty of violin solos, a piano interlude amidst the strings, and the deliberately slow pacing of the strings. A cinema soundtrack to an epic comes to mind. This is Geoff Love’s style: romance has to be taken in long breaths, and every note prolonged for its own pleasure. With the exception of ‘Begin the Beguine’, Francis Lai’s ‘A Man & a Woman’ and ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’’, Mr Love turns every tune into an adagio worthy of the great classical composers. The opening track ‘Cavatina’ is truly unforgettable in its deliberate rearrangement for violin solo, unlike the original in the movie THE DEER HUNTER featuring guitar. Equally popular is perhaps the piano renditions of ‘Cavatina’ – eminently intended to convey the idea of a ‘sentimental song’ behind its name. Geoff Love, slows it down, weaves several layers of string counter melody and leaves the listener wondering if this might have been used instead for films like THE WAY WE WERE or SOMEWHERE IN TIME. The use of strings is also creatively joined with extensive use of woodwinds, brass et cetera to evoke the beauty of the original melody all over again. Listen to ‘Annie’s Song’, ‘Secret Love’, ‘Misty’, ‘The Summer of 42’, ‘I Will Wait for You’, the Love Theme from the Godfather and ‘Love Letters’, it feels like you are listening for the very first time. It is no surprise Geoff Love has highly sought after as musical arranger! One last surprise: Percy Faith’s ‘A Summer Place’ gets a piano introduction and is slowed down by half its usual tempo, thereby gaining a whole new romantic visage of sound. Perfect for revisiting the happy moments of the day, or the week!
In When I Fall in Love: 22 Unforgettable Songs 1989 CD (EMI / CC 236), Mr Love seems to try his hand at doing a ‘Ray Conniff’ album. But this turns out rather pleasant and refreshingly Geoff Love instead. His inspiration is not the Big Band, the Swinging 60s or jazz. Instead, the voices are meant to be soft hued, tender and substitute for a 60-piece string orchestra. One hears sparse instrumentation such as brass, harp, piano, light percussion, and very brief violin interludes. Geoff Love’s Singers are coached to provide a subtly textured string diversion. Male and female voices are blended not in altos, baritones or sopranos, but somewhere in between. Standards such as ‘Imagine’, ‘Evergreen’, ‘My Eyes Adored You’, ‘When I Fall in Love’, ‘If’ and ‘My Cherie Amour’ are reimagined with the delicate impressionism associated with pastoral watercolour paintings when Geoff Love coaxes the human voice into an ethereal romantic plane.
Track listing
1.
Imagine 3:26
2.
What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life? 4:09
3.
Moon River 2:43
4.
If 2:37
5.
When I Fall In Love 3:26
6.
The More I See You 2:54
7.
I Only Have Eyes for You 3:09
8.
It's Impossible 2:43
9.
Annie's Song 2:38
10.
Without You
4:00
11.
My Eyes Adored You 3:20
12.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 3:59
13.
My Cherie Amour 3:07
14.
Love Story
3:43
15.
Something
2:41
16.
Don't Cry for Me Argentina 4:07
17.
Vincent
4:49
18.
Killing Me Softly With His Song 4:47
19.
Snowbird 3:18
20.
Michelle 2:44
21. Just the Way You
Are 4:01
22. Evergreen 3:41
Till the next review then,
ALAN
FEBRUARY 2022
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