This was the Smokey Robinson whose "Quiet Storm" (also part of the concert) named a radio format, and who was a model for Prince: caressing and lingering over each high, sweet phrase, savoring each tension and release, praising and flirting with his object of affection.
But he has no knack for the sweet phrase or memorable quote -- his native rhetoric seems to be the blunt speech of the water cooler.
It is a sweet-sounding phrase, and obviously taken from somewhere in his literary memory.
Buy him gelato, make a heart-shaped pizza, and practice whispering sweet phrases to each other in Italian.
Eye wasn't the only multitasker: one late stretch had Yoshimi singing incongruously sweet phrases as she played dartlike runs on a keyboard.
The celestial stationery suite was inspired by the sweet phrases Khaleesi and Khal Drogo would call each other: "Moon of my life" and "My sun and stars".
Brownlee evoked a brighter kind of yearning, ending on a sweet major-key phrase, and his approach not only revived the old tradition but made more dramatic sense; after all, the central image of the aria is "palpiti," heartbeats of anticipation, and Nemorino finds fulfillment moments later.
Even in big operas like "A View From the Bridge," Mr. Bolcom shows his leanings toward a sweet melody, a catchy phrase; this weekend he and Ms. Morris show off these traits in the first performance of his complete cabaret songs, written during the last 25 years to lyrics by his longtime collaborator, Arnold Weinstein.
Early on, a taut, accelerated "Too Darn Hot" showed her power as a swing vocalist, and "The Last Rose of Summer" as a sweet, traditional balladeer ornamenting phrases in a formal Celtic style.
She luxuriates in her introspective material, savoring the lyrics and lingering over the ends of phrases in a sweet humming vibrato.
