Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s Laughter in Summer reviewed: songs of praise to love and community
To begin his second studio album since becoming one of contemporary music’s most cherished rediscoveries, Beverly Glenn-Copeland utters a count of “1, 2, 3… 1, 2, 3”. It’s a seemingly simple moment that’s rich with layers of meaning. Glenn-Copeland’s placid voice exudes the same qualities of grace and patience that came in handy back when the Philadelphia-born artist was best known as a performer and composer of music for children’s television in his adopted home of Canada in the 1970s and ’80s. As something a musician may recite to launch a group into an unfamiliar tune, it’s also fitting since most songs on Laughter In Summer were recorded in single takes. Moreover, the album’s final song – “Let Us Dance (Movement Two)” – documents the very first time it was ever performed with the choir of singers gathered for the session in Montreal.
To begin his second studio album since becoming one of contemporary music’s most cherished rediscoveries, Beverly Glenn-Copeland utters a count of “1, 2, 3… 1, 2, 3”. It’s a seemingly simple moment that’s rich with layers of meaning. Glenn-Copeland’s placid voice exudes the same qualities of grace and patience that came in handy back when the Philadelphia-born artist was best known as a performer and composer of music for children’s television in his adopted home of Canada in the 1970s and ’80s. As something a musician may recite to launch a group into an unfamiliar tune, it’s also fitting since most songs on Laughter In Summer were recorded in single takes. Moreover, the album’s final song – “Let Us Dance (Movement Two)” – documents the very first time it was ever performed with the choir of singers gathered for the session in Montreal.
Yet there’s something more profound about the act of counting here, too. It’s easy to imagine how this act figures into Glenn-Copeland’s Buddhist practice, as a tried-and-true tactic for a re-centering and re-situating of self in the here and now. On a heavier-hearted tip, it can be heard as a means for Glenn-Copeland to train his focus, marshal his energies, and hopefully sidestep some of the neurocognitive challenges the 82-year-old composer has faced since being diagnosed with a form of dementia in 2023.
So however small this initial act may seem, it may have an oversized significance and impact. That’s true of so much of the extraordinary music that’s come to wider attention since the 2017 reissue of Keyboard Fantasies, a 1986 collection of beatific, richly textured pieces that Glenn-Copeland originally self-released on cassette. More examples of his spellbinding, celestial-minded fusion of electronic, folk, new age and neo-classical music subsequently resurfaced, as did two more jazz-oriented efforts from the early ’70s. Just as enthralling were the more recent musical activities captured on 2020’s Live At Le Guess Who? and 2023’s The Ones Ahead, whose nine recent compositions comprised a perfectly poised restatement of purpose.
New recordings of several of those songs can also be found on Laughter In Summer, which was recorded during a few days at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango with producer and engineer Howard Bilerman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor). The original intention was not to make a new album, only capture songs then being performed on tour by Glenn-Copeland (who goes by Glenn since publicly identifying as a transgender man in the early 2000s), his wife and creative partner Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland, their music director and pianist Alex Samaras, and Naomi McCarroll-Butler on clarinet and whistles. One of many younger musicians in Canada’s jazz, experimental and folk scenes who’ve eagerly embraced an artist they treasure as an LGBTQ+ elder, Samaras also put together a group of singers that included Montreal singer-songwriter Helena Deland and several of Samaras’ cohorts in Toronto’s Queer Songbook Orchestra.
Together, they create yet another way of experiencing Glenn-Copeland’s songs in a fresh way. As Glenn’s challenges have increased, Elizabeth’s support has become more crucial, a fact that’s most evident in a new version of a composition that first appeared on The Ones Ahead. One of the many songs that Glenn initially wrote as birthday presents for his partner, “Harbour (Song For Elizabeth)” has been transformed from a somewhat brooding, near-jazz ballad into a brighter-hued showcase for the couple’s intertwined voices. Elizabeth’s lovely, limpid vocals also come to the foreground for “Middle Island Lament”, a song that reflects on the often-painful experiences of immigrants to Canada’s East Coast, where the couple lived for many years.
Laughter In Summer’s title track was born out of “Songs With No Words”, a series of instrumentals which Glenn-Copeland began composing after the diagnosis and feel steeped in his childhood immersion in Bach, Schubert and Chopin. Upon hearing an early version of the song included, Elizabeth was moved to improvise lyrics to accompany Glenn’s vocalising, providing a deeply felt expression of gratitude for past and present happiness (“My heart, my joy, my life/My home on earth here with you”).
Yet the aspect that most enriches Laughter In Summer may be the deft incorporation of voices besides those of Glenn and Elizabeth. Laden with shimmering synths on Keyboard Fantasies, “Ever New” attains a more organic and expansive variety of beauty thanks to the contributions of Samaras’ ad hoc choir. Their accompaniment is equally valuable on the haunting rendition of “Shenandoah”, one of many spirituals that Glenn-Copeland first learned from his mother while growing up in Philadelphia. And the decision to include two new versions of Keyboard Fantasies’ “Let Us Dance” proves to be a wise one given how much they diverge. In the version that commences the album with the countdown, the singers’ voices form a pillowy resting place for Glenn’s gentle voice as it flutters and soars across his multi-octave range. Conversely, he begins the album-closing version in a lower register and more somber tone before assuming a playful dynamic with Elizabeth and the other singers as they answer and repeat each other in a round.
Besides being a captivating effect, it’s another apt metaphor for something larger happening as Laughter In Summer unfolds in what’s essentially real time. That’s the convening of a loving and grateful community of singers and performers, united by their desire to give support both to a unique creative force and to the body of music he continues to create, music that’s imaginative, poignant and fundamentally, achingly human.
