Take Five
Julius Monk Presents
Ronny Graham in Take Five
At The Downstairs At The Upstairs Room
With Jean Arnold, Ceil Cabot, Ellen Hanley, Gerry Matthews
Stan Keen & Gordon Connell - Pianos
Directed & Staged by Max Adrain and John Heawood
Arrangments by Stan Keen
Produced for records by Abbot Lutz
Photographs and Cover Design by Eula of M. H. Green Studios
Engineering and Mastering: David Hancock
Offbeat Records 0-4013
From the back cover: Everything about "Take Five" the miniature revue that has been leading such a healthy life in a midtown cellar along New York's Sixth Avenue, is hand-made, not machine-made, right down to the cardboard sign, "This Performance Sold Out," that the doorman cheerfully hangs up every evening at nine-fifteen on the gate at the top of the steps leading to the Downstairs Room, where "Take Five" lives. For a decade, the revue form has been suffering from the consequences of an unfortunate slogan – millions for decor but not one cent for humor; "Take Five" has become a success but the simple expedient of reversing this formula. with time-out for highballs, coffee, roast beef sandwiches and potato chips, "Take Five" runs ninety minutes; since you will be supplying your own eats and drinks, and since no one has yet found out how to record visual wit as well as spoken wit on wax, this recording of the revue runs a bit shorter. But the spirit of the thing lives on, and the spirit, you might as well know right now, is one of mockery, irreverence, and devil-take-the-hindmost. As a matter of fact, the cast of "Take Five" happens to be made up of devils – five young devils, but experienced ones, just the same. They are Ronny Graham, Ceil Cabot, Ellen Hanley, Jean Arnold, and Gerry Matthews, and if you haven't encountered any or all of them on Broadway, on television, on radio, or in the movies, vaudeville, and night clubs, where have you been all this time? But we'll get back to them a little later.
The next voice you hear will be that of Julius Monk, introducing you to "Take Five." Mr. Monk, easily the most celebrated citizen of the Carolina hamlet of Monk's Corners (population 1), spent his formative years as the power behind the throne in quick-witted night clubs in London, Paris, and New York (notably the dear departed Ruban Bleu) and then decided to have a place of his own, the Downstairs Rooms, where for three years he has been putting on not the conventional sort of night club show but a revue over whose words, music, and pace he has complete control. It is possibly the one instance in history in which benevolent despotism has paid off. His speech patterns, as you are about to discover, is a worldly as his point of view – a combination of Carolina, Park Avenue, Mayfair, and probably Jupiter and Mars. And his orchestrations, instead of being the customary overwrought ironwork of a thousand-piece band, are the calm but ingenious work of just two young pianists, Stan Keen and Gordon Connell.
On the heels of Mr. Monk comes the "Upstairs at the Downstairs Waltz," in which the cast, in the course of introducing itself in three-four time gets involved in a good old barbershop quintet. There ensues "Roger, The Rabbit," in which Ceil Cabot, a rabbit-size minx with a rabbity, baby-doll voice, explains (in the words of Steven Vinaver, a young man who has gone on from Barb College varsity shows to greater things) the differences between human and rabbit moral codes. The next arrival is "Night Heat!", in which Gerry Matthews proves conclusively to Ronny Graham and Gordon Connell that it is folly to be interviewed on television. Don Adams, a humorist on the night club circuit, is the principal author or this dilemma. "Perfect Stranger," sung quietly but to the hilt by Ellen Hanley, is the unique kind of meaningful ballad that Bart Howard, who is also sung around the country by such diverse divas as Portia Nelson, Mabel Mercer, and Lena Horne, tosses off with the greatest of ease. In "Gristedes," a Vinaver burlesque of the down-in-the-depths torch song, Jeam Arnold's deep voice has a thundering good time. Miss A., by the way, is the newest of the Monk devils, having replaced Jenny Lou Law, the brisk and sardonic soubrette of "Take Five," who not long ago had to be temporarily invalided home. "Poet Corner," a Vinaver romp in which the entire cast shows up, is a fine workout for everyone – Gerry Matthews as a terrified moderator, Jean Arnold as an bracket idiot, and Ronny Graham as a Jack Kerouac poet. All hands are back in place for "Grapevine," the most inventive work yet of the composer Edward Redding, in which the evil that rumor-mongers do lives on after them. If social documentation must be done on the stage, this is the way to do it. Jean Arnold ensues, a moment later, with another perfect demonstration of social documentation, "Westport," in which, giving wings to the words of Carolyn Leigh, one of the best new lyricists around, and the music of Philip Springer, she proves that the paths of social glory lead but to the grave. Then Gerry Matthews gets elbow room to do "Witchcraft," one of those rapid-fire internal-rhyme ditties that Michael Brown wrote in the days before he gave up performing and began producing bright-eyed revues himself. "Witchcraft" is a wishful-thinking aria for anyone in need of supernatural powers. "Pro Musica Antiqua," the tongue-in-cheek words of Steven Vinaver and the parody music of Johnathan Tunick, is Ellen Hanley as humorist, not ballads. All of us who have suffered through prep-school or finishing-school evenings of culture will find here our reward. In "Harry The Hipster," Ronny Graham, who up to now has been an amiable, garrulous Dr. Jekyll, suddenly turns into Mr. Hyde, who, smoking something that is "not a civilian cigaret," leads us down some eerie bypaths of progressive jazz. The words (and what passes for words) of this exercise in psychosis are Mr. Graham's now, and they have nothing in common with the evangelism of the Mr. Graham who called himself Billy. A moment later and we are at the final "Doing The Psycho-Neurotique," a mass meeting of the cast in which Mr. Graham mingles his fondness for parody and his fondness for neurasthenia. "Strange Bedfellows" would have done just as well as a title.
Well, there you have "Take Five," or as much of it as it is possible to squeeze into a single album. Actually, though, the only thing that's missing is the look of the thing – the fashion-plate elegance of Julius Monk, the mad mobility of Ronny Graham's unforgettable face, the willowy beauty of Ellen Hanley (an excellent match for her voice), the dark good looks of Jean Arnold, the ga-ga impishness of Ceil Cabot, and the sturdy but not obvious handsomeness of Gerry Matthews. These extra ingredients are all, of course, available every night in the Downstairs Room. Just be sure to call up beforehand for a table, that's all. – Rogers Whitaker
Julius Monk Presents
Cast Call
Upstairs At The Downstairs Waltz
Roger, The Rabbit
Night Heat!
Perfect Stranger
Gristedes
Poet's Corner
Gossiping Grapevine
Westport
Witchcraft!
The Pro Musica Antiqua
Harry The Hipster
Doing The Psycho-Neiurotique
