Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments

This one-hour television special from Barbra Streisand and the CBS network is incredibly busy--but not always lively. Part one (built around the almost-endearing concept of utilizing one song, "I Got Rhythm", in different musical formats) has La Streisand changing costumes, hairstyles and personas to become different tantalizing women from around the globe. Barbra enchants viewers with unabashed seductiveness, but the visual and musical design doesn't lift off, and one may get restless with the fanciful conceit. Eventually, we get to the good stuff: Streisand's duet with Ray Charles on "Cryin' Time" is a highlight, and the star is in sensational voice on the emotionally-charged but difficult "I Never Has Seen Snow". Still, her chit-chat between songs lacks flair, and the attempts at humor (with a temperamental computer and also a set full of noisy household appliances) are uneasy. The closer, "The Sweetest Sounds", has a beautiful, cooing chorus, and Streisand lets her hair down (literally) on the uptempo "Sweet Inspiration" (which maybe could have stood a bit more polish). Barbra allows the camera to come in close--very, very close--to her celebrated profile, yet her imperiousness is still sometimes hard to crack.

As the last of the CBS-TV specials showcased in the five-disc set, "Barbra Streisand: The Television Specials", the extravagant "Barbra Streisand...and Other Musical Instruments" came a full five years after her last special. It's important to note that she was no longer just a chanteuse at this point and had in the interim, catapulted herself into a movie career. Her music also changed as it evolved into a broader terrain of pop beyond her standard repertoire of torch songs and show tunes. For what would be her last special made strictly for the television medium (her subsequent specials have been videotaped concerts), Streisand goes back to the three-act concept structure that worked well for her in her first two specials, 1965's "My Name Is Barbra" and 1966's "Color Me Barbra". However, never one to repeat herself, the performer turned the concepts inside out by loosely revolving the program around the basic idea that music is a universal language.

In Act I, she starts things light with a medley of "Sing" from "Sesame Street" and Mac Davis' "Make Your Own Kind of Music". With a succession of exotic instruments, she then segues into an elaborate world-music medley of "I Got Rhythm" blended with her regular repertoire and highlighted in a whirl of color and costumes. Act II sees her swimming in a hippie-style caftan in a state of confusion over then-current data computers while singing pre-electronica versions of "By Myself" and "Come Back to Me". This leads to a rather incongruous segment with Ray Charles, where he effortlessly sings "Look What They Done to My Song, Ma", duets mighty prettily with Streisand on Buck Owens's "Cryin' Time Again" and then accompanies her and his Raelettes on a churning medley of "Sweet Inspiration" and "Where You Lead". Granted Streisand's choreography is a bit awkward and her bell-bottoms somewhat distracting, but the number works even if it does pale mightily next to the live version she performed at the LA Forum.

The third segment has Streisand in a fussy lace gown doing a comic version of a famous Schubert lied, a poignant performance of Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's "I Never Has Seen Snow" (the best moment of the special), and her signature "On a Clear Day". The climax comes with a weak medley of "The World Is a Concerto" and again "Make Your Own Kind of Music" accompanied by tuxedoed men operating electric household appliances and surrounded by a 100-piece orchestra including a musical saw. The end credits surround an aura-affixed Streisand singing "The Sweetest Sounds". Aired in November 1973, the special represents Streisand at her most youthfully glamorous and teasingly audacious. With very clear visuals and audio, this DVD does not contain her best TV work, but it holds up well over the past 33 years.

This is an award-winning live television special from 1973. Barbra Streisand sings with music from several different countries, including India, Africa, Japan, and Germany. It also features a duet with Ray Charles. Entertaining show. The musics, the scenography, and the directing style are very enjoyable. It has its funny moments, too.

An album (Streisand's fourteenth) was released the same year, but it wasn't very successful.

Length: 51min

This is a lavish, musical extravaganza by the terrific Barbra Streisand and at the height of her vocal prowess. She sings over 30 songs, including a huge medley in Act 1 that culminates with her holding the last note of "I've Got Rhythm" for nearly 30 seconds! It's something to behold. Ironically, this special came after "My Name Is Barbra," "Color Me Barbra," and her other 60's specials and at the time it was considered "overproduced." The critics missed the boat entirely. This show is sumptuous, not overdone. Two sequences don't work -- the "By Myself" number and "The World is A Concerto" -- but most of the music is great. And Streisand's duet with Ray Charles is wonderful. The final song, Streisand & chorus singing "The Sweetest Sounds" acappella is

Barbra Streisand's 5th special for television presents her voice as another musical instrument, in tandem with an orchestra, international music, and appliances; and shows her range in singing standards, gospel, faux-classical, and songs associated with her movies.

Streisand here has the tanned look and long grey-blonde hair she adopted in her 1972 feature What's Up Doc?, where her smooth skin is exposed, notably as she sensually undulates hanging from a rope during One Note Samba. A pink outfit she wears for Glad to be Unhappy pre-empts the dress Rose Morgan would wear at the wedding of her sister in her 1996 film The Mirror Has Two Faces, and Streisand's expressive face as she sings is juxtaposed with the Kabuki make-up of the Japanese player. I Got Rhythm is used the way I'm Late was used in her 1965 My Name is Barbra special, as a frame for other songs, and as in that show's sequence at Sak's Fifth Avenue, Streisand again shows what a clothes horse she is. This time she is seen as an Arabian belly dancer for People, Spanish flamenco for Second Hand Rose, in a sheer slip as a Indian American dinner in a pot for Don't Rain on My Parade, and as an African tribeswoman. (The sight of the Jewish shiksa pretending to be an Arab would have enraged zionists). These sequences, as well as her Sweet Inspiration/Where You Lead where she leads a chorus of African American's pre-empting the Great Day number in the 1975 feature Funny Lady, also display Streisand's underrated ability to dance.

Although the pre-recorded track Streisand mimes too is acceptable in I Got Rhythm because she is moving in a way that would stop her from singing live (though it dates detract from her long-held note of ‘more' at the end), it does upstage her Come Back to Me number and lessens the comic element of her fluster over the echo-chamber machines. She also fights to be heard against the orchestra in I Never Has Seen Snow and The World is a Concerto. The attention to the way she is lit in the Glad to be Unhappy number and The Sweetest Sound where she is back-lit with white gossamer, is in opposition to the fact that Streisand is seen in few close-ups.

The inclusion of Ray Charles as a guest star is a more conventional decision. From My Name is Barbra, Streisand had deliberately altered the norm of variety specials, by refusing to have guest stars. I966's Color Me Barbra got her out of the studio and into an art museum for the use of its paintings, and 1967's The Belle of 14th Street presented a vaudeville show, where Jason Robards and Lee Allen were co-stars, and as a filmed stage show conceit, we also had a cast audience. In this special, Charles is primarily used as an intro to her gospel singing, where she duets with him on Cryin' Time, after his remarkably long solo of Look What They've Done. This represents her shift in prefered music, in an attempt to give her a more youthful appeal. However perhaps the Charles factor also represents Streisand's realisation of the exhaustion factor inherent in the audience only having her, as well as her awareness that because of her success in film by this time, she no longer needed television as much as she did before.