Iconis' eclectic songbook is sampled from early projects, upcoming projects, abandoned plans, and stand-alone numbers. With the studio disc based mostly on their nightclub appearance at Manhattan's Feinstein's/54 Below, with Two-Player Game they're game for bringing all kinds of quirky, fearless energies to entertain and sparkle. With the current New York City run of Be More Chill by Joe Iconis, featuring singer-actor George Salazar, and the online viral sensation that came alongside the 2015 cast recording (on the Ghostlight label, like this release) from the earlier New Jersey run, it's fortuitously welcome timing for an all-Iconis set by Salazar with the songwriter as pianist and occasional harmonizing vocals.
These just-right pair-ups of vocalists and material are artistic marriages that might be the musical equivalents of marital partnerships that would be the proudest arrangements by Broadway matchmakers Dolly Levi of Yonkers or Yente from Anatevka.
One concentrates on songs written by Ann Hampton Callaway and the other is singing the words of Johnny Mercer (occasionally his own composer), with melodies by Harold Arlen represented on both recordings. Josephine Sanges and Minda Larsen are New York-based singers who were, respectively, runner-up and winner of the now-shuttered Metropolitan Room's singing competition called MetroStar. Reviewed below, the new George Salazar collection of songs written byand performed withcomposer/lyricist Joe Iconis reminded me of a couple of earlier releases that are also surveys of tunesmiths with fortuitously matched interpreters.
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