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After a cold (which left my voice in bad shape for podcasting) and MinneBar (which was a great pleasure), it\u2019s back to In the Hands! I\u2019m continuing from last time the series of recordings I made recently with soprano Kim Sueoka of songs by Todd Harper.

For several years, Todd has been writing songs full of the sort of jazz changes that are his roots, but as much in the tradition of lieder as anything. He always makes them short, sweet, and very focused \u2014 haiku-like \u2014 and when he\u2019s setting a text longer than a few lines, he\u2019ll often break it into a chain of very short songs, each only a few words long. I don\u2019t know of anybody who does anything quite like it.

The four songs of this short cycle are almost a sort of \u201cfound haiku\u201d \u2014 the text is from actual police reports in an unnamed northern Minnesota town. Yes, they are real. No, Todd will not tell you which town it is.

They\u2019re absolutely hilarious \u2014 Kim does a perfect deadpan delivery of their painfully earnest description of the mundane and mildly ridiculous things the police in a small town have to deal with. Audiences have different reactions to the humor: when we did them at an ACF Tuesday Salon, the very polite \u201chigh art crowd\u201d audience murmured appreciatively at the humor, but seemed to be waiting for permission to laugh; when we did them shortly afterwards at Patrick\u2019s Cabaret, the audience let out such an incredible stream of roars and guffaws, we were barely able to stay together!

There\u2019s something in them beyond the humor, however: a sweetness, a tender love for the world of a small towns. Our sense of scale is relative in all things \u2014 space, time, what\u2019s important \u2014 and in a little town, a disheveled stranger, a fence knocked down \u2026 these things matter. Todd lets the humor in, but it\u2019s not mocking \u2014 it\u2019s tender. He\u2019s laughing about what he loves, I think.

\n\n\n\n\n\nTodd Harper\n\n\n\n\u25b6\ufe0f\nNorthwoods Police Report\n\n\nKim Sueoka, soprano\n\nPaul Cantrell, piano\n\n\n\n\n\n\u2b07\ufe0f\nDownload\n\n\n(3:57 / 5.2 M)\n\n\n\n