Good news: "The Man That Got Away" is not on this tribute to the Judy Garland songbook. Yes, it's an extraordinary song, but how many versions of it do we need? Apart from that absence, Linda Eder tackles many well-known nuggets long associated with Judy Garland--or as Leslie Bricusse puts it in his fawning liner notes, "Picasso Sings Rembrandt." Eder, a belter par excellence, lacks Garland's brittle vulnerability, and so she isn't at her best on songs that require a delicate touch, such as "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart." She's much more at ease on tracks like the fingersnapping "I'd Like to Hate Myself in the Morning," which also has the advantage of being fairly obscure--Garland performed it on TV in 1968 but didn't record it so her vocal pawprints aren't all over the song and Eder can put her own stamp on it, as she does on the lone new original, Jack Murphy's "The Rainbow's End." In terms of arrangements, the album sounds as if no expense was spared. The songs are split between the London Symphony Orchestra and a gang of experienced jazzbos who know how to deliver a big-band bang. That alone is enough to recommend this album--lovers of old-school orchestrations should be in heaven. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
