Ann Hampton Callaway is a multiplatinum-selling pop and jazz singer/songwriter best known for writing and singing the theme from the TV hit The Nanny. She is definitely on the jazzier end of cabaret, and that is the inspiration for her latest club act “Jazz Goes to the Movies” (Ann is also an out lesbian, who gave me the honor of being the journalist to do her “coming out interview” – you can read that here).

Ann remarks that while some people are “Deadheads” she’s a “Fredhead,” that is a fan of Fred Astaire, and she does several songs that Astaire originated in movies. “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” – an Irving Berlin song Fred sang to Ginger Rogers in Follow the Fleet – receives what is possiblly the most emotional reading of the evening. She applies the first line of the song to the present day: “There may be trouble ahead.” But in that connection she takes very seriously the remedy offered by the next couple of lines: “But while there’s music and moonlight and love and romance / Let’s face the music and dance.”

While Astaire was one of the great influences on Callaway, another was Ella Fitzgerald. So it’s completely natural that the feel of this show should be Fred’s crooning mixed with Ella’s sumptuous jazziness. On songs Ann herself sang for the movies – “Come Rain or Come Shine” from The Good Shepherd and “The Nearness of You” from Last Holiday – the jazz quotient is through the roof.

Callaway successfully covers a very wide range era-wise, from Astaire’s 1930s hits to “Pourquoi” (which Callaway wrote and sang for 2017’s Blind), crafting a loving musical history of the hope and joy jazz brings to the movies. Callaway achieves a kind of jazz-pop perfection, shimmery and rich. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.