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About the Album: JEFF HARNAR heard the story of his own life in the songs of the late Stephen Sondheim, the iconic composer and lyricist known for changing the landscape of musical theater. Harnar wove over 25 Sondheim songs — from familiar anthems like “Being Alive” and “Losing My Mind” to rarities like Dick Tracy’s “Live Alone and Like It” and “More” — into an original narrative, reimagining them for an LGBTQ+ audience and creating a self-portrait of a proudly gay New Yorker in the contemporary world. Weber, serving as conductor and orchestrator, recast the songs in a jazz idiom: a radical reinvention of Sondheim’s harmonies, one that the composer himself — upon seeing the show onstage — not only endorsed but encouraged. Now, PS Classics, Sondheim’s label of choice for his final two decades, offers another jewel in its Sondheim crown: a highly original and personal celebration of the artist’s work, by one of its foremost interpreters.
PS CLASSICS, the label dedicated to the heritage of Broadway and American Popular Song, will present the new album from award-winning nightclub and concert artist JEFF HARNAR – I Know Things Now: My Life in Sondheim’s Words on CD and digital formats on Friday, June 17. The album boasts a 20-piece orchestra conducted by renowned jazz piano virtuoso Jon Weber (host of NPR’s “Piano Jazz”) and is produced by Bart Migal, with Ronald Thomas serving as executive producer. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com.
Harnar will celebrate the album with a special concert engagement at The Laurie Beechman Theater in New York for three Wednesday performances on June 15, 22 and 29 at 7:00 PM. In addition to music director Jon Weber on piano, Harnar will be joined by Steve Doyle on bass and Ray Marchica on drums. Harnar will also perform this program at The Purple Room in Palm Springs, CA on June 17, and Crooner’s Supper Club in Minneapolis, MN on June 26, with other national tour dates to be announced.
“The words and music are Sondheim’s … but the story is mine,” Harnar says. “This is virtually the only line in my own words when I perform the show. The evening is unique in that it is sung-through, with almost every word from my mouth a Sondheim lyric. And yet, the piece could not be more personal. In the words of Sondheim, ‘What more do I need?’ This is a unique experience for me, as it is my first solo show sung as an openly gay man, honestly sharing my story and my heart … with the correct pronouns. For the first time the songs I’ve chosen, many originally introduced by women, are clearly being sung to and about the men in my life.”
“My creative team on the project are a dream collaboration,” Harnar adds. “Our music director, orchestrator and conductor, Jon Weber, has brought a jazz vocabulary to the textures of these songs that is uniquely fresh.” The stage version of I Know Things Now is directed by the Broadway legend Sondra Lee, who originated the roles of Tiger Lily opposite Mary Martin’s Peter Pan and Minnie Faye opposite Carol Channing’s Dolly Levi. Harnar remembers: “Sondra has been a name on my lips since my childhood, when Mary Martin would fly into our living room in the first color broadcasts of Peter Pan. That she is now, at age 91, bringing her wisdom and guidance to my work is a miracle in my life.”
Harnar has been honing this program with performances in Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, New York and London. “Thus far Jon and I have been performing as a duo,” he comments. “For the album we have 2o players, all superb Broadway pit musicians, bringing to life the arrangements Jon and I created, and that he has orchestrated so imaginatively. This is my first solo album in 17 years, and the first that I’ve created from the beginning with the album’s producers, PS Classics’ Tommy Krasker and Bart Migal. It’s been a master class having their guidance. They worked closely with Mr. Sondheim on over a dozen of his cast albums — not to mention his two solo discs — so there simply couldn’t be better guides.”
“On a personal note,” Jeff concludes, “Tommy and I are pleased that my previous PS Classics album, the 2005 release Dancing in the Dark – recorded in my forties – will now have a resolution with this album, I Know Things Now, recorded in my sixties. We both know the statements in this new album couldn’t have been made at any earlier point in my life. At the time of his death, Sondheim was aware and supportive of this endeavor and was looking forward to hearing the rough mixes. In the last email Mr. Sondheim sent me, written 16 days before he passed, he signed off with, ‘Thank you for doing the show – Steve.’”
A rave review from BroadwayWorld.com praised the show’s “strategic and powerful medleys that melded some of Sondheim's greatest hits with his lesser known classics. Harnar brought us in to experience and reminisce on the joys, pains, anxieties, and pleasures that have brought him and us to who and where we are in the present.” London’s Musical Theater Review said “this was a set to delight but also challenge every Sondheim fan’s preconception of the meaning of much-loved favourites. Harnar makes singing look easy, even when confronted by Stephen Sondheim’s notoriously difficult lyrics.”
Label: P.S. Classics
