AI Top 9: They did it their way

Last week on AI, a theme that was not a theme, Gwen Stefani and much singing that I did not care enough about to take out the keyboard. Chris Sligh left after not being able to find the beat on the Police's Everything She Does is Magic. The best male voice tonally, but ultimately not a good singer technically.

This week, it's my favourite theme night every season, when the kids dust off the good old American Songbook! Standards Night or Big-band Night (are they calling it Tony Bennett night this year?) brings out the detractors in droves (irrelevance of the genre in modern music, regression instead of risk, boring reinterpretations of songs done 100 times before and 100 times better by 100 other singers) but I love it. A matter of taste, perhaps, but I love the songs from that era; how they are invariably grateful to the ear and how clever they can be lyrically. I don't even mind the AI contestants butchering these songs, because the songs are good enough to withstand it.

Last year, they had Rod Stewart on Standards Night. This year, they landed the big one - Tony Bennett!! Tony freakin' Bennett, fer cryin out loud! I think this is the biggest deal on AI since Elton John back in S3.

Blake sings Mack the Knife. I have a strange love-hate relationship with this song. I think it has one of the great melodies of the standards repertoire but the words are completely incongruent with the tune. All that morbid stuff about scarlet billows are set to this finger-snapping major key melody. It's a song to be sung with laid-back menace, I suppose. Anyway, Blake adopts the finger-snapping, smooth approach. It's a mess vocally, easily the worst he has sounded in this competition. No interesting arrangement tonight to compensate, either. I like Blake a lot, and I just wish he would let us hear his voice properly, without being too caught up in "putting on a performance". He is so natural on stage, I think he can afford to spare some attention for his vocals and the performance would not suffer at all.

Phil tackles one of my favourite Cole Porter songs, Night and Day. Confession: I have six recordings of this sung by different singers (love them all, but my favourite is probably Fred Astaire's because of its genuine swing sensibility, even if he was not the vocal equal of the others recording this music in his day). Phil approaches this as a passionate love song, all swelling strings and drawn out phrasing. Not a swing beat to be found (against Tony Bennett's advice, which will be a recurring theme). He sounds pretty good but then I make the mistake of watching instead of just listening. Yikes! His appearance is particularly discomfiting tonight, with his uncovered head, pale complexion, pointed ears and his eyes more orb-like than before. When he is not smiling, he is really scary looking. Seriously, like an unearthly character in a Neil Gaiman graphic novel. I think the singing is strong and heart-felt, but I completely understand Simon's comment about the performance being dark - Simon might not go there directly, but he means that Phil seems to have come from the Underworld.

Next up is Melinda Doolittle. Another confession: she's my favourite contestant this year. Among some circles in the blogosphere, it's become almost something of a war-cry to disparage her (too boring, too polished, too rehearsed, possibly disingenuous, no neck and so on) and I can objectively see where they are coming from, but no matter, I am a fan. I am usually wary of the contestants that the judges endorse. This time, I think the praises are deserved. To my ear, she is among the best singers that have ever appeared on this show. I don't particularly believe she will be a big superstar beyond AI, given that talent is not the most important currency in the industry. But within the context of this show, she is the best thing on it and she is making the best of this opportunity to parlay the AI exposure into a solo career. Tonight goes down as another top-drawer performance. She sings Gershwin's I Got Rhythm in three distinct parts (slow and sweet to start, spirited middle section and finishing off in classic big-band all-horns blaring manner) and shows off again the layers and flexibility in her voice. The syncopated rhythms are so difficult and she pulls it off effortlessly.

Chris does Don't Get Around Much Anymore, but not before forgetting the words in front of Tony Bennett. All things considered, I will be glad if he gets through the song without any dropped lyrics. He makes a dramatic entrance, silhouetted against the backdrop, striking a pose that is Sammy Davis Jr meets Michael Jackson. I immediately feel like laughing. Then he starts singing and I feel like crying. He is sounding less nasal than usual, all credit to him. In place of the nasality is something far worse - the dreaded "pitchiness". He wanders off-key almost off the bat and never quite finds his way back. It is so irredeemably bad that I cannot even watch what he is doing on stage, although I am sure he is engaging the audience and being cool per his usual MO. The judges inexplicably like this performance and my thoughts turn to conspiracy theories.

Jordin is next singing On A Clear Day, an AJ Lerner composition from the 1960s. As far as these things go, it's the most "modern" song of the night, befitting one of the youngest contestants there. I think Jordin has the best vocal tone of anyone there, in that it is the purest and the most straightforwardly beautiful, especially in her upper register. And this is a great song for her particular type of voice, open and joyous and full of phrases that climb and climb. She starts off rough and her breathing between phrases is distractingly audible. Then she hits the part where the song rises and her voice carries it home, hitting a great big note to finish off on. It is not especially subtle singing, but tremendously effective. Simon gives her some complete BS about how she played it safe and old-fashioned, compared to Chris's more contemporary take on his song. I guess that means bad singing is contemporary? Jordin might not have tried anything too risky, but she did not do a note-by-note reproduction of Streisand.

Gina sings Smile, while sitting on a stool. The first thing I notice is her make-up which is terrific. She looks very classy, glamourous in a very subtle way (Chanel vs Versace, if you will). The eye make-up is especially well-done. She is singing a straightforward arrangement, no flashy phrases or big notes. I like it very much, although I fear it is a little too low-impact for this show. I do like the fact that she is not smiling inappropriately throughout the song, unlike some people have in the past. It is a perfectly pleasant and restrained performance, very controlled and understated as the judges go on to say. It is probably too restrained for this show, where bombast and over-wrought interpretations bear greater rewards. Perhaps Gina should have gone for the impassioned approach that Phil took with Night and Day, allowing her voice to crack on words like "aching" and "breaking".

Sanjaya (who will be with us even next season, at this rate) takes on Cheek to Cheek, which that sweet fellow George Huff sang back in Season 3. He rather endearingly tells us that he wants to show America that he can actually sing, which is a rather refreshing admission that his past two performances haven't been so much about the singing. Tony Bennett seems to have a soft spot for the kid which is nice. Okay, I am not Sanjaya's "demographic" and I don't get the cult of Sanjaya. AT ALL. He seems nice enough, but I don't think he is all that cute and I frankly find his Jack-O-Lantern perma-grin as creepy as Phil's Demeanour of the Embraced. All that excessive hair and the weirdly proto-effete stage mannerisms; straight out of a nightmare sequence in one of those low-budget 1970's "surrealist" comedies. Underneath all that, he has a decent voice and he shows it to us tonight. It would take some really bad singing to make me dislike Cheek to Cheek and Sanjaya is not bad tonight. Not great, but certainly serviceable. His voice is clean and clear and he manages to pull of some dancing with Paula without losing the key. Vocally better than both Chris and Blake tonight.

Haley is next, wearing some shiny metallic fabric that is cut up to here and down to there. Tony Bennett tells her that Ain't Misbehaving is about exactly that - not misbehaving. Haley proceeds to misbehave down in the audience and all over the stage. She is determined to make this song into some a coy, flirtatious number being sung by a Marilyneque sex-pot. The singing is non existent and mostly drowned by the band. She is just all long legs and gesturing arms and flashes of cleavage. I don't hold it against her to use her assets to the best of her own advantage, but this is NOT the song to sing if she is going after "sexy". Too Darn Hot might have been a better choice. As it is, it just comes off as a poorly executed non-event. Maybe this is one for the boys, because I am certainly not feeling it. Again, I am probably not the "demographic".

Lakisha is probably going after my "demographic" with her take on Stormy Weather. She has a wonderful honey tone to her voice unheard since the semi-finals. I thought it might come out to play tonight, but she opts to do the song as some sort of pissed-off paean to the nastiness of man. So she is injecting false grit into her lower register and goes off-key for her effort. Interpretively, this performance does not work for me. Stormy Weather can be sung ironically or with resigned bitterness but not with man-swallowing rage. It takes away the sultriness of the melodic line. Then she ends with a melisma phrase, pointedly ignoring Tony Bennett's advice to just hold the big note. Almost as if by karmic intervention, she hits a very sour last note on the phrase and the song ends abruptly on that bad note that you will hear forever.

Result show: Did not watch it. Gina goes home, undeservedly so in a week where Haley and Chris R were much, much worse.