Her new show at Feinstein’s, “The Happiest Sound in Town”, features many of her her signature songs, including “Golden Rainbow” and “You’re Gonna Hear From Me”, a personal favorite of mine. This is a classic act in every sense of the phrase. Maye is a jazz-pop singer worthy of being included in the company of Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn or Blossom Dearie, and her phrasing is the finest I’ve heard in that style from a living singer.

Her repertoire for the evening ranges from Shaiman & Wittman’s “Butter Outta Cream” from Catch Me if You Can and a dazzling New York medley to “When I’m In Love” by her mentor Steve Allen, and even Mama Cass’s big hit “Make Your Own Kind of Music”. Maye exquisitely tailors her style of singing to the individual song, smooth for the ballads, swinging for the standards, and truly gritty for the bluesier numbers.

Maye appeared on Johnny Carson’s edition of “The Tonight Show” a total of 76 times, a record not likely ever to be beaten by any other singer with any other host. She’s been enjoying a New York renaissance recently, making critically acclaimed appearances all over town. If you love classic songs sung like they’re meant to be sung, it doesn’t get any better than this.

For tickets, click here.

I’m thinking that the Cafe Carlyle booked Gregory Charles in an attempt to take late Carlyle legend Bobby Short’s claim that he was “just a saloon singer” to a new place. Short was sincere in that claim – his earliest experiences as a performer were in the last days of vaudeville, and his brassy interpretations of standards owe great amounts to the “saloon”/vaudeville tradition of giving audiences the songs they wanted, with that something extra they didn’t know they wanted until the singer sang it.

To Short’s approach, Charles adds the more recent traditions of the piano bar “piano man” and the rock and roll “bar band,” featuring journeyman musicians with giant “fakebooks” of every song in existence. Only in Charles’s case, that “fakebook” is entirely in his head, and the band is a cut or two above “journeymen,” able to follow Charles wherever his nimble musical imagination goes, following his lead on songs they may not know that well, even adding witty improvisational cherries on top of this delicious musical sundae.

Gregory Charles is best known as a television personality and concert star in Canada; in addition to starring on the most-watched show on Canadian television (the reality talent show Star Académie), Charles is well-known in Canada for his unique summer music festival in Laval Quebec that draws a half-million spectators every year. In fact, it was on Canadian television that he introduced this audience request format, when he hosted his own popular Jimmy Fallon-style television talk show. He has since perfected it in front of audiences big and small around the world (including 5,000-seat arenas).

The videos you find on YouTube and his website – showcasing his French-language singer-songwriter side – do not give you an accurate picture of what you would see at the Carlyle. As a matter of fact that is probably impossible as the show is 90% requests from the audience. In the first few song of any set, he starts out with what amounts to a sophisticated version of “today in music history,” which on opening night included songs by George Gershwin, Cab Calloway and Louis Prima.

After that, Charles draws audience requests at random from a box. On the night I was there, the requests had a surprisingly “classic rock” bent that Gregory cheerfully and cleverly weaved into standards that were also requested. Since every show is unique, I don’t think I’ll be giving anything away by saying that Guns & Roses “Sweet Child of Mine” blends surprisingly well with Hoagy Charmichael’s “The Nearness of You” and Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose”, as Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Água de Beber” does with Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Less surprising, but equally delightful, were mash-ups of “I’m Easy Like Sunday Morning” with “You are So Beautiful to Me” and “Stand By Your Man” with “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”.

If the phrase “saloon singer” means anything in the 21st Century, it’s probably this kind of show. Highly recommended, and a whole lot of fun.

For tickets, click here.

Nellie McKay is a highly individual talent, a supreme stylist, with wild, crazy creativity and substantial musical intelligence to match her razor-like interpretive ability. To mark the 50th anniversary of the book Silent Spring – the first major expose of pesticides in the environment – McKay has put together a special show about its author Rachel Carson, the trailblazing environmentalist.

The key word in that last sentence is “special” – this is cabaret as only Nellie McKay could do it. She does the entire act while literally playing the role of Rachel Carson, right down to period-accurate costumes and props. And period-accurate music and speaking styles as well. I’ve noticed her perfectionist sense of history before, but it has never been on as complete display as it is in this act.

She also knows when to break out of time and place to make a point. She performs Neil Young’s 1970 song “Ohio” while enacting Carson’s study of the effects of pesticides on birds in the 1950s. Through using the anachronistic song, McKay subtly makes the point that Carson was way ahead of her time. And the musicianship is beyond reproach – there are occasional off-key harmonies, but those are also clearly stylistic choices as well.

The act is so complex, in fact, that it seems decidedly under-rehearsed. This is experimental performance art meeting high society cabaret, and is very much a case of immensely talented people stretching their abilities to their limits. That it is as swimmingly successful as it is, is no small achievement.

McKay’s combination of irony and heart-on-sleeve sincerity is utterly unique, her performance style multifarious and unpredictable. She’s a true original, and it’s an exceptional pleasure to see and hear her take such exciting risks in such an intimate setting.

For tickets, click here.

Part of the joy of listening to really good jazz is the exciting spontaneity of improvisation. A rhythm that jumps out of nowhere, a melody that turns in an unexpected direction. In the cabaret show they are doing at the Cafe Carlyle, trumpeter Herb Alpert, his singer wife Lani Hall and the expert players behind them, this thrilling spontaneity is on more outlandish display than I think I’ve ever experienced in the world of cabaret.

Alpert is most associated with his group the Tijuana Brass, and was also a recording industry executive — he is the “A” of A&M Records, which he founded with business partner Jerry Moss. Lani sang with A&M artist Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66, most famously on their hit version of “Mas Que Nada”. In the act at the Carlyle they perform selections from the two albums they’ve recently recorded together (the first time in their decades-long marriage that they’ve collaborated in that way), as well as a medley of Tijuana Bras hits.

I can’t overstate the impressive and exciting musicianship in this act. Alpert has structured the songs in intricate ways that leave abundant room for improvisation. They may play the same songs from night to night, but musically every performance will be utterly different. Alpert is a breathtakingly soulful player, and Lani has that kind of liquid crystal voice that songwriters dream of.

Most impressive of all was a reworking of brilliant Brazilian songwriter Edu Lobo’s “Viola Fora de Moda” – which Alpert has given a structure suffciently complex that the normally powerfully present Hall lost her place at the top of the number. Once she regained her composure, however, she and the band locked into a groove and improvised their way into the stratosphere. Stunning.

For tickets, click here.

The outrageous new Wednesday night drag revue Hot Mess has definitely set a new high bar for drag in NYC. First of all, its the only full-on multi-performer drag revue in a truly gay venue that I can think of in the city. But it’s much more than just that: the queens at the core of this show, Lady Bunny and Bianca Del Rio, are the smartest, wittiest and most fearless in all of drag, and a show that was just them would be legendary in its own right.

But Hot Mess is even more than that. Bunny is the force behind the whole thing, and she has assembled a cast of the city’s most talented drag divas, and the last time she did that, it turned into Wigstock – the annual festival of drag which ran for 20 years. There aren’t as many queens in this but they are truly a choice selection.

Milan, one of the competitors from the last season of RuPaul’s Drag Race acts as the show’s choreographer, and she packs the group numbers with excitement. She’s also a phenomenal dancer herself, serving abundant flash and drama. Jiggly Caliente, also a contestant on this season of Drag Race, is a phenomenally accurate lip syncher and dancer. Skyla Versai specializes in up-tempo stormers from 21st Century pop starlets, and delivers them with infectious high energy. Finally, Sugga Pie Koko brings Andy Kaufman-eque brain-warped comedy to drag, and I feel about her like I did about Andy – she’s often totally annoying, nearly as often brilliant, and never less than compulsively watchable.

On top of all this, you have XL’s crazy sophisticated sound and light system as a backdrop for the ladies. Drag has rarely been this multimedia – and even though it’s truly spectacular, I still think they’ve only scratched the surface of what they can do with it.

Bunny has said of the show, “this is going to be similar to the drag shows I grew up watching down south with production numbers, costumes, choreography, a brilliant emcee (Bianca), some serious dancing, a little celebrity impersonation and of course, lots of laughs!” If that was the plan, she has thoroughly succeeded.

When I saw it on its first night, Hot Mess still had a handful of kinks to work out – it started very late, even for drag time, and the two-hour-plus running time could use some trimming. Even with those problems, Hot Mess is first-class, state-of-the-art New York drag, and not to be missed.

For tickets, click here.

People who are only familiar with the fabulous Christine Ebersole from her Tony-winning turn in Grey Gardens may not be aware that she’s also an astonishingly good cabaret performer, who can sing jazz with the same elegant power she brings to musical theater. I’m delighted to report that, in her latest jazzy cabaret act at Cafe Carlyle, featuring a five piece band led by the ever-tasteful John Oddo, Christine is her usual, spectacular self.

Oddo was musical director for the late, great Rosemary Clooney and he worked with jazz legends like Woody Herman, and it shows in the tight, elegant and powerful arrangements and piano playing he brings to the table. Christine refers to the band as “John Oddo’s Society Orchestra” aptly describing this small combo that often sounds like a big band.

This also finds her reuniting with top class cabaret director Scott Wittman, who has his own Tony for co-writing the score of Hairspray, and who has directed several acts for Christine. In a new twist, Christine has conceived and written the show herself, and like everything else she has turned her hand to, she’s done an amazing job, creating patter that is witty and cuttingly satirical. She structures the evening with a loose conceit that she’s performing a “cabaret at the end of the world”, and delivers the whole thing with an utterly natural, sparkling élan.

The big showstopper here is her genuinely breathtaking version of “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” She intensifies all of this Depression-era ballad’s power, evoking whole worlds of drama and dreams deferred, displaying more interpretive power than just about any other singer I can bring to mind. Wow.

For tickets, click here.

Petula Clark is best known as a singer, but on the basis of her cabaret show at Feinstein’s – her first such show in the city since the 1970s – I’d venture to say she’s even stronger as an actor and writer. Sure she’s won two Grammy Awards, and one of the evening’s high points is a beautifully sung “La Vie En Rose” (on which it should be noted, Petula accompanies herself gorgeously on piano).

But that “La Vie” is stunning in part because she so clearly acts, in both her singing and playing, the emotional story behind the song. And the very highest point of the evening is Clark’s reading of her own poem “The Theatre” – a refreshingly honest love letter to that art form. She prepares the audience for it very cleverly, comically anticipating their groans of “oh God, a poem”. Even though people generally think of Clark as as phenomenon of the 1960s, she in fact had been acting since her childhood in the 1940s, and that shines through.

The evening didn’t start out so promisingly, with Clark singing a terribly cheesy arrangement of Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate On You”. But then she went on to perform her chart-topping pop hits like “Downtown,” “I Know A Place” and “My Love,” generally in ways that were intriguingly more bluesy that the originals.

Even stronger though, were songs from her theatrical career from shows such as Sunset Boulevard, Blood Brothers and Finian’s Rainbow – these are where Petula, the committed actress, gave the most help to Petula the pop singer. All in all, this act is a pretty fun entry in New York’s cabaret world, and for someone who hasn’t done this kind of thing in decades, pretty damn good.

For tickets, click here.

Riotously funny “Dean of Drag” Lady Bunny doesn’t put limits on what she’s going to say or do in her new cabaret act “That Ain’t No Lady”; sure there are plenty of pre-planned numbers and videos – like her famous, zany Laugh-In style routines – but one of the great charms of this show is its spontaneity. Bunny is one of the smartest drag queens ever, and she is equally likely to launch into incisive political rants (my favorite parts of the show) or a steady stream of dick and poop jokes. She’s a powerful presence who also posses a terrific sense of when to keep it light. Girl knows just how to milk it!

She never stays in one mode for too long, and while she might go all stream of consciousness at certain points, she never quite seems to ramble. The Lady isn’t afraid of sentiment, but she’s not sappy – a heartfelt tribute to Amy Winehouse is followed by jokes about her death that are in the worst possible taste. It’s a terrific balance, and probably the only way you could tell those jokes in a way that’s funny rather that truly offensive. She does the same thing with Cher, praising her talent and drive just before satirizing her as the monstrous “Scare” in a wicked spoof of BURLESQUE.

In the same way that Varla Jean Merman does, Bunny covers her costume changes with her YouTube videos. These include her rap debut – “Watch your back, Cazwell!” she warns – in a parody of “Like A G6” turning it into an ode to uncircumcised men entitled “Like A Cheese Stick”. That’s the hilariously low level of most of this energetic, mostly-for-the-laughs winner – definitely the funniest gay show in town!

For tickets, click here.

Nadler packs over 61 songs and 61 newsworthy events into “Crazy 1961,” a celebration of the year of his birth. But Nadler doesn’t just shower us with random facts. There are always many layers in a Mark Nadler show, ranging from the obvious to unspoken subtext, which gives an “oomph” far, far beyond your typical cabaret show.

It doesn’t hurt that 1961 was, in fact, crazy: “The Music Man” and “Gypsy” ended long runs on Broadway while the Supremes made their first recording, Streisand her first television appearance, and Garland her legendary comeback at Carnegie Hall – Nadler points out that, for many of those reasons, it was a great year to be gay. This being one of Mark’s shows, that off-handed quip ends up reverberating in surprising ways.

The show evolves into a complex portrait of the exact place and time that Nadler was born, in exciting and ultimately moving ways. Every single song in the show is from 1961, and he finishes with a truly insane medley of fifty songs from the year. This is as giddily entertaining – and breathtakingly smart – as cabaret gets.

For tickets, click here.

While the show has a vague underlying theme – something to do with singers and songwriters that have inspired the two – mostly this show simply testifies to their ability, separately and together, to dig into a song and tell its story with detail and feeling. Cook finds some rich shadings in Irving Berlin’s “I Got Lost in His Arms” that most other singers miss. She also fully plays both the ruefulness and the celebration in “Here’s to Life”, where most singers would pick only one angle and stick with it.

Feinstein’s been truly blossoming as a singer in recent years. In the evening’s most moving moment, he delivers a passionate rendition of “Fifty Percent” that the lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman have altered slightly to change the character in the song from a newly widowed woman to a gay man. His heartfelt, textured reading of this clear-eyed yet ardent song goes from a gorgeously restrained, romantic beginning to rattling the rafters with an open-throated declaration of love at all costs. What can I say, it made me kvell. Go, Michael go!

This may not be particularly holiday themed, as Feinstein’s shows around this time of year have sometimes been. But this is, nonetheless, about as luscious as cabaret gets. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.