Delightful, De-Lovely

By Martha Duffy

COMPOSER: COLE PORTER

ALBUM: FROM THIS MOMENT ON

LABEL: SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF RECORDINGS

THE BOTTOM LINE: He's the top.

PLAYBOY, IDLER, A SNOB'S SNOB, Cole Porter lived the dream life of the '30s, remote from the privations of the Depression. But as he and his rich friends cruised the beauty spots of the world, he was listening to the rhythms of their speech and of the bands they danced to, transforming their fads and crazes into often mordant social comment. And into 500 or so of the best American songs ever written -- ballads, laments, sophisticated melodies, impudent scatter, chatter, smatter songs. The miracle of this four-CD set is that it makes a rich sampling of those songs sound so fresh and persuades the listener to hear the larky, witty words and the elegant harmonies as if for the first time.

And the album is produced by -- can this be right? -- the Smithsonian Institution? Aren't they the earnest scholars who compile hours of field hollers and other historic folk music? Yes, but in 1971 the Smithsonian began moving gradually into mainstream pop and jazz, first by mail order and, since last fall, in retail record stores. Because it is a nonprofit entity, commercial labels grant it the rights to their classic and vintage tracks. These plus the private collections unearthed by the Smithsonian make for unequaled quality and comprehensiveness.

Here the Porter treasures range from the composer's tart, crisply enunciated delivery of Anything Goes to Gertrude Lawrence's lascivious rendition of The Physician. Some choices bow, gratifyingly, to the obvious. Ethel Merman trumpets Blow, Gabriel, Blow; Fred Astaire croons Night and Day; and Mary Martin purrs her way through My Heart Belongs to Daddy. But more interesting are the unexpected matches and offbeat finds. Marion Harris, a now forgotten star, strikes a provocative balance of plaintive charm and rhythmic sophistication in a 1930 recording of You Do Something to Me. For Miss Otis Regrets, Ethel Waters' well-known version is bypassed in favor of one by blues singer Alberta Hunter because, as album editor Dwight Blocker Bowers notes, she gives this uniquely bitter nonsense song "Porter's sassy spirit." So does this whole definitive set.