By turns a concert film and a biographal portrait, I’m Your Man attempts to capture the elusive essence of poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen. Cohen’s music is represented by various artists performing at a tribute organized by the innovative producer Hal Wilner, while the Canadian wordsmith slips in and out of the narrative as a talking head, discussing the vagaries of his eventful life.

The consistent beauty and passion of the performances reflect the admiration felt by a disparate assembly of singers that includes Nick Cave, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Jarvis Cocker from the Brit-pop band Pulp, New York cult figure Anthony, and neo-folkers Teddy Thompson and Beth Orton.

Highlights include Cave’s mordant reading of “I’m Your Man,” Martha Wainwright’s chilling “The Traitor,” Thompson’s shyly romantic “Tonight Will Be Fine,” Rufus’s campily tangoed “Everybody Knows,”… (Barnes & Noble)

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Leonard Cohen–songwriter, poet, former monk, ladies man, and sharp dresser–receives a near-hagiographical treatment in I’m Your Man, a part concert-part documentary in which his work is interpreted by an array of singers. Cohen tributes are nothing new, what with Jennifer Warnes’ Famous Blue Raincoat and the multi-artist compilations Tower of Song and I’m Your Fan having preceded this one.

But music producer Hal Willner, who has spearheaded similar projects focusing on Thelonious Monk, Kurt Weill, Harold Arlen, and Charles Mingus, is especially skilled at putting together rosters of diverse and unexpected artists, and he’s done it again here, matching superstars U2 with the likes of Nick Cave, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Kate’s offspring Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Beth Orton, Antony Hegarty (of the group Antony and the Johnsons), Jarvis Cocker, and others.

Whether all of this works or not will naturally depend on the viewer’s point of view. Cohen is no one’s idea of a great singer, but he’s certainly a distinctive one, with his ocean-deep basso profundo and the slow insinuations of a guy who, having been a Zen monk, certainly understands the virtues of patience; his lyrics, too, are sui generis, personal but rarely mawkish, at once plain and cryptic.

To these ears, performances by Orton (”Sisters of Mercy”), Teddy Thompson (”Tonight Will Be Fine”), and the Handsome Family with Linda Thompson (”A Thousand Kisses Deep”) come closest to capturing Cohen’s spirit… (Amazon)