Ron Carter Esperanza Spalding - Downbeat

Beyond | By john mcdonough
Dean Martin
Cultivated A
Personified Cool
No one has a monopoly on cool, which comes
in many faces and forms, all fleeting in their
passing particulars but immutable in their consistent
message. To be cool is to have mastered
the art of indifference.
Dean Martin: The Collected Cool (Universal
001681900; 51:18/48:27/50:07 HHH)
invites us to consider the easygoing singer as
an avatar of a particular cool, circa 1960. Not
the Beatnik Cool of Bleecker Street or the Village
Vanguard, but the upscale Establishment
Cool of Madison Avenue and the Copa, now
fashionable again through “Mad Men,” which
has transformed William H. Whyte’s once
dowdy and conforming “Organization Man”
into dapper Don Draper.
Perhaps Martin was the organization
man’s secret alter ego. He cultivated indifference
early as protection against the small-time
Mafioso of Steubenville, Ohio, then fashioned
it into art. This collection gives glimpses of that
evolution in the ’50s, and then its leisurely drift
into self-parody by the ’70s. Martin’s relaxed,
baritone croon was straight out of Bing Crosby,
but with a slight Southern slur that seemed to
imply a flippant wink that mocked its own lazy
charm. But as long as he played romantic relief
hitter and straight man to Jerry Lewis, he
was eclipsed as a singer by his partner’s manic
mayhem. By the time they split in 1956, he had
logged just two major hits (“That’s Amore,”
“Memories Are Made Of This”) and had only
two albums in the catalog.
The first of four discs in Collected Cool
covers Martin’s Capitol years and reflects the
feverish hunt for a hit single. It’s an inconsistent
pastiche of movie songs, duets (one each
with Lewis and Nat Cole), novelties and Italian
pasta like “Volare” and “An Evening In Roma.”
It leads with a limp series of canned announcements
that offer nothing. If the intent was a
private peak behind the scenes, why not the
hilarious Martin-Lewis promotional blurbs for
the 1953 film The Caddy, which give a sense
of their rhythms as a team?
After floundering as a single, Martin understood
that being a singer wasn’t enough. He
had to find a stage persona that would define
a public Dean Martin and wrap everything he
did in a believable, character-driven appeal. He
didn’t have to look far. For years friends who
saw behind the Martin-Lewis act found Martin
the really funny one—a smooth, smart, subtle,
detached, irreverent, lovable rogue. To that he
added bandleader Phil Harris’ pose as the amiable
drunk. Thus emerged Dean Martin, coolest
of the cool in a haze of J&B. “Direct from
the bar,” became his standard intro. It worked.
Dean Martin
The second CD covers his years with
Reprise starting in 1962 and continues in the
greatest-hits mode. By then Martin’s post-
Lewis nonchalance had ripened to a peak.
I saw him that year with Frank Sinatra and
Sammy Davis Jr. Not only was he the comic
engine of the trio; I thought I heard in the legato
silkiness of his phrasing something of Lester
Young. The problem was he had grown too
cool for his own music. The songs themselves
became targets of his immaculately tailored
apathy, props to be mocked in his couldn’tcare-less
act. “When You’re Smilin’” became
“When You’re Drinkin.” He would break off a
song after half a chorus, as if bored with it. This
was the Martin that thrived on a nightclub floor
nestled before an audience of 500 and that is
perfectly caught on disc three in a Lake Tahoe
show where nothing is played straight.
But if such self-mockery blocked any
chance of him being taken seriously as a singer,
the magnificent bel canto baritone on the
combo version of “Everybody Loves Somebody”
reminds us that was his free choice,
not a sealed fate. The Martin who continued
recording a mix of ballads, novelties and later
country tunes for Reprise seemed to exist in a
decidedly less cool parallel universe where he
duets with Conway Twitty. Too bad the collection
overlooked Martin’s 1962 witty pairing on
“Sam’s Song” with Davis.
The fourth disc is a DVD—Martin in London
in 1983, still with that wayward gleam in
his eye and moving with blasé grace across
the stage. Now he only had to mumble a lyric
to get a hand. Fans will enjoy the DVD and the
Tahoe gig, each showcasing Martin in high solo
flight. As for the Capitol and Reprise material,
you have to dig deep to find the promised cool.
Worse still, the lack of any liner commentary,
dates or personnel is a major defect. Given the
expensive packaging, it’s also very un-cool. DB
Ordering info: umusic.com
universal music
DECEMBER 2012 DOWNBEAT 89