The collaboration between poet Arnold Weinstein and composer William Bolcom dates back to the 1960s when the two worked together to write the musical theater piece Dynamite Tonite. In the late 1970s, the two renewed their working partnership again to produce, over the next two decades, four successful volumes of Cabaret Songs. Bolcom had long been performing in this elusive, problematic genre, accompanying his wife, Joan Morris, whose voice heavily inspired and affected these songs. The authors made clear the artistic heritage they were claiming, identifying a heavily German cabaret lineage from Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht back through Arnold Schoenberg all the way to Franz Schubert. These 24 songs' fascinating blend of sophisticated rhetoric and seeming unrefinement have led to their frequent inclusion in both vocal recitals and theatrical revues. Rarely predictable but always pleasing, the songs tread a most delicate balance between pathos and bathos.

The first set of six was composed between late 1977 and mid-1978. "Over the Piano," the first song, encapsulates the entire cycle. Over a harmonically florid, heavily rubato accompaniment, an engaging melodic line, alternating between lyricism and parlando, tells an intriguing tale with a wry final twist. The set continues with the personable "Fur" through the grandiose "He Tipped the Waiter" and resignedly simple "Waitin" to end with two of the most popular songs: the "Song of Black Max" and "Amor." The former is something of a through-composed "Mack the Knife," while the latter is a charming melody to a lively Latin rhythm that brings the set to a delightful close.

The companion second volume, the most cohesive cycle of the three, contains more reflective songs—music for the morning after the celebration. The gracefully rhythmic "Places to Live" yields to one of the more striking songs, the jazzy and forthright "Toothbrush Time," the jagged melodic line of which both belies and reaffirms the disenchantment of the singer. "Surprise," a chromatic enigma, gives way to "The Actor" which in turn leads to "Oh Close the Curtain," a ballad reminiscent of Sondheim. Again the set closes with a calculated audience-pleaser, "George"—a darkly humorous tale which references both Puccini and ragtime music, among others.

Notable in the third set, which combines late 1970s and mid-1990s compositions, are the touching though satirical "Love In the Thirties" and the darkly philosophical "Miracle Song"—another number with highbrow and lowbrow allusions side by side, as evidenced by the performance marking "Mahlerian Jazz Waltz." The final song, "Radical Sally" is a languidly honest female counterpart to "Black Max." Prominent in the fourth set, which dates from the mid-1990s, are the cheeky "Poet Pal of Mine," the mysterious lullaby "Can't Sleep," and the syncopated dirge "At the Last Lousy Moments of Love." The cycle concludes with "Blue," a freely melodic, simply accompanied summation of its predecessors: its phrase "awf'ly smart people are often awful dumb!" can be read as touching acknowledgment of the unpretentious and unselfconscious manner in which both poet and composer have drawn from all ends of the artistic spectrum.

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