Month: July 2018

Review: Spencer Day

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This singer-songwriter – with a monthly residency at The Green Room 42 – knows exactly who he is, so I’ll let him tell it: “I’m the younger Harry Connick, I’m the gayer John Mayer,” “I love the the 1950s, but without the rampant racism, sexism and homophobia.” Funny guy, this Spencer Day. And comic relief is needed, since most of his songs have a dark noir tinge, even his recent Billboard Jazz Chart hit “72 and Sunny.”

After giving a moody rendition of that song, Day quips that a review cited the song’s allegedly “bright, hopeful lyrics,” to which he replies “really? I thought it was about clinical depression in beautiful weather!” Which it is. But it’s easy to see how Day’s wit and upbeat Mormon boy demeanor might convince one otherwise.

After making this observation about his own song, Day launches into a medley which reminds us that many of the songs that we have danced to or made us smile are, lyrically speaking, dark stories of co-dependency or desperation. From “Don’t Leave Me This Way” to “Baby Love” to even older songs from his beloved 1950s, Day has a point.

His humor also finds its way both into actual comic songs – “Too Old to Sleep My Way to the Top” and “Book of Faces” come to mind – and songs that turn ruefully funny after a yearning start, like “The California Yes” which, it turns out “is only a maybe at best,” and winkingly offers the advice: “when you’re on the Pacific / don’t get too specific / or think that you’ll see them again!” Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

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

Review: Marilyn Maye

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National treasure. International treasure, even. In this day and age, utterly unique. In the 1960s you could perhaps compare her to contemporaries like Rosemary Clooney, Sarah Vaughn, Helen Merrill, Dinah Washington or June Christy. Perhaps even to the great – and a bit older – Ella Fitzgerald, who once called Marilyn Maye “the greatest white female singer in the world.” At 90, Maye’s the only jazz singer in that style left. That’s not the only thing though. She sounds nearly the same now she did then. Also, she has never for a moment ceased working on her craft, and so is now such an impossibly stylish and expressive singer that there has perhaps never been anyone like her.

At the new Birdland Theater right now, she’s turning her towering talent mostly to showtunes. Maye has been rediscovered by New York audiences over the last decade or so, and the ever growing lovefest between fans old and new is palpable in the room, which only adds to the fun. She’s always included showtunes in her act, so there’s plenty of familiar stuff, especially from Hello Dolly and Mame, shows whose title roles she played in now-legendary regional productions. She also does a a medley of songs from My Fair Lady that climaxes in a stunning, hard-swinging rendition of “On the Street Where You Live.”

There are several other medleys, but Maye and her music director Tedd Firth – a gifted jazz pianist she coaxes into some hilarious deadpan interplay – handle medleys in an unconventional way, undercutting their potential for corniness with thoughtful storytelling and sophisticated jazz musicianship. If you love show tunes sung in sparkling and surprising ways, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

For tickets, click here.

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

Review: Lucie Arnaz

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The daughter of Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz of I Love Lucy fame, Lucie Arnaz has forged a career of her own, including originating the role of Sonia Walsk in the hit Broadway musical They’re Playing Our Song. In “I Got The Job: Songs From My Musical Past,” her new cabaret act at the newly opened Birdland Theater, Arnaz returns to her theater roots and looks back at some of the roles she has created on stages throughout the world, from her first roles in the Los Angeles area’s best high school for theatre, to a grandmother hanging upside down on a trapeze.

She opens with a mashup of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” from Annie Get Your Gun and “Got a Lot of Living to Do” from Bye Bye Birdie – she cleverly avoids the chorus of “Show Business.” She does a lot of numbers from Annie Get Your Gun, clearly a favorite role of hers to sing. Same goes for Playing Our Song; she does the title song like gangbusters, and also the 11 O’Clock number “I Still Believe in Love” which she preface’s with a hilarious story about the rewrites it went through.

I wish she’d given even more detail about The Witches of Eastwick, which clearly had some juicy backstage stories she wasn’t telling. She does have a wickedly great time singing the hell out of the devil’s big number “Who’s the Man.” The entire show has a party-like feel, with such a talented and witty host. Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

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

Review: The Django Festival AllStars

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Even though Django Reinhardt, the man who invented “gypsy jazz,” was a full-blooded gypsy himself, the genre has always felt more French than “gypsy” to me; the only things that it takes from traditional gypsy are the use of string instruments (bass, guitar) to create rhythmic effects, and a love of arpeggios. The use of violin and accordion is more redolent of bal-musette, an instrumental variety of Parisian cabaret music. Coming out of a festival of gypsy jazz named for the genre’s founder, The Django Festival AllStars play a particularly vigorous version of the music that incorporates elements of bebop and even jazz fusion, without ever leaving behind the distinctive sound that Reinhardt invented.

Gypsy jazz originated in the 1920s and 1930s, a time when “hot” was a byword for playing jazz hard, fast and fiery. And boy do these AllStars know how to turn on exactly that kind of heat! In particular button-accordionist Ludovic Beier improvises with a blazing intensity and swirling dexterity more often associated with horn players. Violinist Pierre Blanchard knew and was directly influenced by Stéphane Grappelli, Django’s own violin player; once again though, the playing is hotter and more fierce than Grappelli’s, even at times soulful.

Lead guitarist Samson Schmitt comes from a family of gypsy jazz guitarists with connections to Reinhardt (his father played with Django’s son), and while he can effortlessly play with the precision and flash of Beier or Blanchard, he is better thought of as the rock-solid center of this assemblage. Rhythm guitarist DouDou Cuillerier provides the genre-defining beat – provocatively called la pompe – and is also the genial goofball of the group, and proves a skillful vocalist on his single solo turn. Bassist Antonio Licusati has probably the least ostentatious role in this dazzling ensemble, but he supports Cuillerier’s pompe with subtle harmonic inventiveness. Le jazz hot, indeed! Recommended.

For tickets, click here.

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