***1/2 Joan Morris, Robert White, William Bolcom

ORCHIDS IN THE MOONLIGHT: SONGS OF VINCENT YOUMANS

(Arabesque)

We probably know more songs composed by Vincent Youmans than we know the lyricists for: "Tea for Two," "Sometimes I'm Happy," "I Want To Be Happy," "Time on My Hands," "Flying Down to Rio" (in 1933, more about the novelty of flying than about Rio), and "Without a Song." Unlike George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, or Irving Berlin, Youmans neither wrote his own lyrics nor stuck with one or two partners. I've always imagined the person who wrote these songs as a gray-haired, cigar-smoking old pro. But Youmans actually published only about 90 songs in a career that lasted barely 15 years. He died in 1946, at the age of 48, of complications from TB, depression, and alcohol. Hard to imagine about the person who wrote so many songs with "happy" in their titles. The songs on this new album range from such uplifting spirituals as "Great Day!" and "Hallelujah!" to sentimental Irish ballads and a not-quite- nonsensical charmer called "Toodle-oo" with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein -- one of several songs here recorded for the very first time.

Joan Morris is a fascinating anomaly. Her trained voice and perfect diction are really right out of the early decades of this century -- singers like Helen Morgan, Libby Holman, and Ruth Etting. Yet she has a knowing contemporary edge. She understands the style of this music from a long perspective. Tenor Robert White sings his numbers fairly straight. Morris knows there's something excessive, even absurd about some of these songs, yet she still convinces you that she feels every syllable.

William Bolcom is the perfect accompanist. What a pleasure to hear these gems treated with the grown-up feeling, taste, intelligence, and wit they were always meant to receive.

-- Lloyd Schwartz