Singer, actress and author Melissa Errico, has recorded a new studio album, Out Of The Dark: The Film Noir Project (Ghostlight Records), to be released on Friday, February 18, which will be celebrated in concerts at Feinstein’s/54 Below on Friday, February 18 and Saturday, February 19 at 7 PM.
The concept of the album was born at the height of the pandemic in 2020, when the world was in lockdown and live performance ceased to be. Errico returned to one of her life-long obsessions—film noir—a genre noted for its dark, disturbing sensibility of intractable fatalism, favored by Paris existentialists. Noir was at its height in American film during the 1940s, and continues to run as a current through modern movies and music. Errico has long embraced noir in her own artistic endeavors and recently co-curated a film festival of noir classics at New York’s French Institute Alliance Française, and offered Manhattan a concert of noir songs.
Out Of The Dark: The Film Noir Project presents a song cycle telling a complete story of hope, despair and hope renewed. Her song selections reach from noir classics, such as Laura and The Bad and The Beautiful, into the French chansons of the 1950s and 60s. Also included in the 17-song collection are Cy Coleman and David Zippel’s “With Every Breath I Take” (from the Broadway musical, City of Angels), Dietz and Schwartz’s “Haunted Heart” (1948), Arlen and Gershwin’s “The Man That Got Away” (1953), Lionel Newman’s “Again” (1948), and Harry Warren and Leo Robin’s “Checkin’ My Heart” (1952). Plus: four brand new songs composed by Michel Legrand, David Shire and the late Peter Foley, with words by her frequent collaborator Adam Gopnik, all arranged by musical director/pianist Tedd Firth.
The album is now available for pre-order from Ghostlight, Amazon, iTunes, Apple Music and will be available for digital download on all platforms on February 18.
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