Liza Minnelli: The Complete A&M Recordings

Question: What's worse than a CD of nondescript, middle-of-the-road ballads from the '60s? A double CD of nondescript, middle-of-the-road ballads from the '60s.

As anyone who read my review of her smashing new Broadway show, I'm a big, big Liza fan. But Liza Minelli: The Complete A&M Recordings was just too bland even for me.

Minelli is definitely an acquired taste. Some find her too mannered, too interpretive, too diva-esque, too too much. But for those of who worshipped at the synagogue of Orthodox Judyism, Liza brings the great traditions of Mama's delivering the hell out of a song.

That's what makes this compendium so disappointing. These recordings were made between her debut as a star, in her Tony-winning lead role in the Broadway show "Flora, the Red Menace" (which I managed to see as a very young tyke--my first Broadway show) and her breakthrough TV special, "Liza With a Z" (which won her an Emmy), and, of course, the movie "Cabaret" (which won her a Best Actress Oscar--a trifecta at a very, very young age).

What we have here, however, are the throwaway albums she made for A&M, most of them from the late '60s. A&M was a middle-of-the-road label. Founded by Herb Alpert (of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass), the artists tended toward light pop like the Carpenters and the Captain and Tenille.

That probably accounts for the choice of material, which never gets more adventurous than "Love for Sale." The arrangements are of the soft-rock variety that drive you crazy when you're stuck in an airport lounge or an elevator.

This is everything the archivists could get their hands on. Even though they're remastered, I'm not sure we need, for example, two takes of a throwaway song like "My Mammy."

What's especially dispiriting about this collection is that Minelli was making (forced into making?) these recordings at the exact same moment in time when female artists like Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro were redefining and exploding the role of the female recording artist.

Mitchell, Nyro, Carol King and many more were contributing some of the best and most-durable songs that would become standards. Oh, what I wouldn't give to hear what the young Liza would have done with "And When I Die" or "I Wish I Had a River" or "Natural Woman."

Instead, we get "What Now My Love," "The Look of Love" and "I Will Wait for You." At the very end of the second CD, we get a jazzed-up, very TV variety show-version of "Cabaret." It may be near-beer, but it's a glimpse of the greatness to come. Minelli was a young woman in search of a voice--one that Fosse, Kander and Ebb would help her find.