- Montreal Forum -

On the Stage
A Great Performer
By Sydney Johnson, The Montreal Star

Seldom can a singer of popular ballads have been greeted with more genuine warmth and affection than was contained in the welcome accorded Judy Garland by the large crowd at the Forum last night. And Miss Garland responded by giving a virtuoso performance of showmanship that, by the time the last song was reached, literally had the audience at her feet. Members of the audience poured down the aisles to cheer Miss Garland and shake her hands over the footlights and remained to crouch on the floor of the auditorium in front of her while she sang, with passionate fervor, "Over the Rainbow." 

There were a few types of popular song that Miss Garland did not attempt and there were none that she did not attempt successfully -- indeed, triumphantly. Every number was a masterpiece of arrangement. Either it fitted Miss Garland's style or it was made to. This resulted in some of the slower songs being pulled far from the composer's originally rhythmic conception--as in "Stormy Weather," for instance but they seemed exactly right as Miss Garland put them across.

And put them across she did, with infinite variety of expression. The musical arrangements were superb, but they were a clever background, against which Miss Garland's voice floated independently, rather than a slavish accompaniment. In these slow ballads, with lyrics of great emotional content, Miss Garland left the strict rhythm to the orchestra and concentrated on communicating the lyrics with an intensity that drew bravos from the audience.

Yet Miss Garland's musical timing was always as accurate as that of any member of the orchestra. Like most great music hall singers she knows instinctively, by training, and by experience, the value of rhythm and how to exploit it.

But without personality all this song technique and showmanship would be useless, that is, to hold so huge an audience enraptured for two hours. Miss Garland has the personality, too. Despite her professional maturity she exudes the gamin quality of the happy little juvenile in all, perhaps, but the torch songs and love ballads. Skipping about the stage between songs, acknowledging the thunderous applause with a kind of friendly gaucherie, pretending to help with the moving of the band instruments, it all tallied recognizably with the image that most of the audience have carried away from her most famous films. The cries of "We love you, Judy" were uttered from the audience with sincerity and more than likely reflected the sentiments of everyone in the Forum.

A good 6,000 or more gathered at the Forum last night to cheer the remarkable Judy Garland in her one-woman song show and she kept them all in a high state  of fervent enthusiasm through a program which kept her working with equal fervor for at least 90 minutes of singing interspersed with easily improvised quips.  and this is all showtime not including the intermission.

It is an astonishing tour de force and Miss Garland makes great theatre of a certain kind out of it.  I suppose she could best be described bye the old and hackneyed expression "ball of fire."  She is a most intense little person with a voice of uncommon power, a striking gift for using  all of her body in gestures and a way of continually pacing the show so that it never stops moving.

She reminded me a little of Helen Morgan of blessed memory, although the style is much broader.  Miss Garland, after all, is a "torch" singer of these days.  I sometimes found what I believe is technically called "belting a song out" a bit overwhelming physically, but Miss Garland saves herself because what she does is always real singing, and often singing of a high caliber if the basic style is taken for granted. 

She had the vast audience in the palm of her hand as they put it.  The voice, if it can be placed in a conventional category, would likely be labeled a mezzo-soprano, if not a contralto.  Her general method when she isn't jazzing is to begin softly, then build up the melodic line into an enormous crescendo, then drop back to a soft close.  The sentiment may often be dripping, but the trick is tremendously effective.

She never keeps still, in one number she danced with her conductor, in another she kicked up her heels solo from end to end of the long Forum stage.  She keeps it all in the embracing rhythm of the show as a whole and does it with a certain seemingly naive charm to which you simply can't help responding.  Whether or not you approve, Miss Garland wants to make you her friend and she did as far as I was concerned.

She is a genuine comedienne in the old music hall sense.  The little gag on the lighting was obviously planned but she made it very amusing.  And the story of her encounter with the London press was really funny.  "How do you do it?" said the London sob sister in an interview.  Not till next day's papers did Miss Garland find out what "it" meant - "Judy Garland isn't chubby, she isn't plump, she's fat."  The introduction of a continually refreshing glass of water on the piano may have been a necessity but she made a virtue of it when she resorted to it.  Likewise the handkerchief to wipe away the honest sweat.  She wore a black dress with a red jacket in the first half.  In the second she romped in a red, green and silver blouse and black teenager slacks.  Most effective.

The program contained a lot of old favorites with, I suppose, something for everyone.  I found my songs in Gershwin's  Do It Again,  Jerome Kern's Stormy Weather, where she does naughty things with pace and phrasing but gets away with it.  You Made Me Love You (which I learned by heart as a school boy) The Bells Are Ringing For Me and My Gal, which likewise has sentimental memories, and Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  In short her material is good, although the single venture into Noel Coward was not quite so good.  She did "belt out" San Francisco, but her little prelude about Jeanette MacDonald singing in the ruins was priceless.

She was backed by an excellent orchestra of strings, wind including saxophones, and a percussion under the direction of Mort Lindsey, her tactful instrumental partner as well as resourceful conductor..  So good was this outfit that I sometimes found myself  looking at and listening to it instead of the lady.  And no disrespect is meant to Miss Garland.