Dan's Papers - May 16, 2008 - Betty Buckley Performs at Bay Street Theatre

For some people, the immediate association with Betty Buckley is her Tony award winning performance of "Memories" from the original Broadway cast of Cats. For others, it's Betty as Abbie Bradford on the TV show "Eight is Enough" in the late '70s. And for still more, it's Buckley's frequent film roles.

Fans of Buckley's 30-plus years of stage performances can rattle off her achievements like counting by tens; Martha Washington in 1776 (her Broadway debut in 1969), Song & Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Pippin, Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Mama Rose in Gypsy. Diehard fans will remember her in the edgy, short-lived musical Carrie, as the besieged girl's mother (and they'll tell you that she also played Ms. Collins in Brian DePalma's 1976 film). Movie buffs will add any of Buckley's many roles in films including Frantic, Another Woman and Tender Mercies.

But what the musical cognoscenti value most about this artist are her electrifying, personal and thoughtful live concerts with her longtime collaborator, pianist/arranger Kenny Werner. For the last 19 years, Buckley and Werner (as a duo or with a full band) have recorded nine CDs, and performed in venues worldwide, including their legendary concerts at the Bottom Line in the West Village. Their inspired collaboration will be brought to the stage of the Bay Street Theatre on Memorial Day weekend. While Buckley hadn't yet determined the songs, she said the show will include Broadway numbers like "Memories," plus arrangements of "Stardust" and "Get Here" from her new CD Quintessence with Werner.

"In the beginning, Kenny and I approached each new arrangement note by note, chord by chord," said Buckley in a phone interview from her ranch outside her hometown, Fort Worth, Texas. "I'd present a painting to him and he would create the environment for me, as the story teller." But after 19 years, the process has quickened. "It's a shorthand," she said. "We go through lots of different songs, find the ones we both have a feeling for. It still has a lot to do with painting - with music, with sound. And it's not just a feeling. It's a perspective, what I see."

Coupled with out-of-this-world arrangements is, of course, the voice - a painting in and of itself, exuding textures and colors from soft pastel to rich and brilliant, punctuated by Buckley's "money notes" - that thrilling, steely upper register. This limitless palette influences Werner and Buckley's collaborations, which are not so much arrangements but creations of entirely new works.

As Buckley sings, her utter commitment to the song evokes endless images and emotions in the listener - the interpretation is in the ear of the beholder.

One of the many great examples is "Never, Never Land" from the Children Will Listen CD. The song starts with a whimsical, French impressionist piano flourish - a commedia del arte clown's wave of the hand. Following is a straightforward, measured 4/4 declaration of "I know a place where dreams are born and time is never planned ..." The storyteller is absolutely confident. There's no doubt she DOES know that place. The song moves into a syncopated instrumental section with clashing tonalities, a dream sequence of an other-worldly carnival, both amusing and frightening. At least, that's what it evoked for me.

Several years ago in New York, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Buckley on an arrangement - the Supreme's "Baby Love." During the heady process, inspired more by the words than music, the song morphed from a light Motown pop tune into an impressionist jazz arrangement of a child's soft yet deeply urgent plea for unconditional love. At least, that's what it was for me.

And for Buckley, that's what it's all about - not her own experience, but the listener's. "The performance is a vehicle to serve the audience," she said. "That's the purpose - to give people a specific and visceral experience."

Buckley readily admits that the greatest influence on her process to create that experience comes, in fact, from a place where dreams are born. "Meditation is the source of every good thing I know - to focus the mind, make choices, have something qualitative to work with that is spontaneous," she said. "Kenny as the pianist and I as the singer/story teller are offering landscapes in music to allow the audience to lift off into their own experience, to get in touch with their own hearts."

Betty Buckley will perform at the Bay Street Theatre on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, May 23-25, at 8 p.m. For information, call 631-725-9500; or www.baystreet.org. She will be available to sign the CD, Quintessence at East End Books, 53 The Circle, East Hampton, on Saturday, May 24, 2-3:30 p.m.