Celia:
In early 2024, my friend and record producer Scott Lehrer spotted Bálint Varga at Alysha Umphress’s show at 54 Below. Knowing I’m always on the lookout for new collaborators, he texted me the next morning to suggest I check out her “smart, tasteful, very talented” music director. I quickly tracked him down, and we met for coffee. I have lots of ideas for lots of projects, and as we talked it seemed to me that my idea to do a series of EPs organized around the four seasons was the easiest way to see if we were sympatico. Bálint was intrigued, and we immediately talked about giving each season a distinctive sound. And we agreed to start with Spring.

Bálint Varga:
For any writer, arranger, or orchestrator, the purest joy in music making comes when an artist completely trusts them and grants full creative freedom. Working with Celia on this album has been an incredibly fulfilling experience. She’s adventurous, intelligent, nuanced, and artful. She brought her own bold ideas and sensitivity to every arrangement, and we shared the goal of creating something artistically compelling. And so, here’s the first season of four.

Words and Music by Bob Haymes & Marty Clarke
Della Blue Music LLC o/b/o Jatap Publishing Co.

CELIA:
This charming song was first recorded by Blossom Dearie in 1958. If you know her voice, you know that original version conveyed the sweet “light as a feather” promise of Spring. It’s attracted a number of other lovely singers, and it’s the kind of hidden gem that attracts me. It seemed a fun start to this “Spring Suite” of songs and my new collaboration with arranger/orchestrator Bálint Varga.

Music by Jerome Kern/Lyric by Dorothy Fields
Music by Ernesto Lecuona/Lyric by Al Stillman
Universal-Polygram International o/b/o T.B.Harms Co.and Shapiro Bernstein and Co. o/b/o Aldi Music; Edward B. Marks Music Co.

CELIA:
Jerome Kern is one of my favorite songwriters, and Dorothy Fields is the most elegant of lyricists. For APRIL FOOLED ME, her words were added to Kern’s melody a decade after his death. Kern’s widow had married singer George Byron, and they asked Fields to pen the lyric. Byron then included it on an album of new and rediscovered Kern songs. In the liner notes, George Frazier detected “muted suggestions of Chaucer and T.S. Eliot”, calling it “one of the most haunting passages in the annals of popular song lyric-writing.” But it remains amongst the lesser-known songs from this songwriting team whose THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT earned them an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

As we explored it, Bálint and I felt it was a bit short and would benefit from a carefully chosen pairing with another song. I pulled out all my songbooks and spotted THE BREEZE AND I, which seemed to comment on the situation described in APRIL FOOLED ME and become a kind of bridge section. Bálint then “wafted” fragments of THE BREEZE AND I in and around the violin solo.

Music by Tommy Wolf/Lyric by Fran Landesman
Songs of Peer, Ltd., and Warner Bros Music a Div of Warner Bros Inc.;
Fricon Music Co. o/b/o Wolfland

CELIA:
This is probably the best-known song in this EP, and it’s been recorded by some of the greatest singers of the Great American Songbook. Wolf and Landesman brought the language and vibe of the Beat Generation into their songs. For this one, Landesman had asked jazz musicians to put into their own words the phrase “April is the cruelest month”, which is the opening line of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. I’m not sure how I ended up with two songs in this EP that echo T.S. Eliot – it certainly wasn’t deliberate! But it says something about the kinds of literate lyrics that attract me.

SPRING CAN REALLY HANG YOU UP THE MOST is often done at a slower tempo, leaning into the sadder aspects of the words. But I zeroed in on the phrase “All I’ve got to show’s a splinter for my little fling” and asked Bálint to aim for wistful, self-deprecating and somehow resilient.

Music by Harry Warren/Lyric by Ralph Blane
Four Jays Music Pub.

CELIA:
I love Harry Warren’s music, and recorded FRIENDLY STAR from the movie Summer Stock on my debut album “You Can’t Rush Spring”. Warren’s name might not be as instantly recognizable as some of his songwriting peers, but his songs certainly are, including 42nd STREET, LULLABY OF BROADWAY, AT LAST and so many more. SPRING ISN’T EVERYTHING was written for Walter Huston to sing in the movie Summer Holiday based on Eugene O’Neill’s play Ah, Wilderness, but was cut from the final version. Warren considered it among his best songs, and I consider it a true gem by a truly great songwriter.

Bing Crosby once asked Warren who his musical inspiration was, and he said, “Puccini”. So perhaps I was channeling that when I asked Bálint to open up the sequence “when Summer… and Autumn…and Winter…sing!” when it repeats after the instrumental section. Bálint makes it almost operatic. And Ralph Blane’s lyrics for SPRING ISN’T EVERYTHING gives us a perfect way to sum up our take on Spring, and pivot to the three seasons still to come.