Month: January 2020

Review: The Hot Sardines

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This band is on a mission to put the “hot” back into “hot jazz.” Think Louis Armstrong’s legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven combos, with a pinch of the gutbucket grit of swing revivalists like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Their repertoire tends to pre-1930 songs, popularized by the likes of Sophie Tucker and Mamie Smith. Lead singer Elizabeth Bougerol is openly committed to “infotainment,” detailing the difficulty Tucker faced early in her career, and her later support for black artists like Smith.

Bougerol and pianist / bandleader Evan Palazzo met in 2007 after they both answered a Craigslist ad about a jazz jam session above a Manhattan noodle shop. Palazzo passed her litmus test – he knew Fats Waller’s “Your Feet’s Too Big” and could play it off the top of his head. Since then they have been increasing the size of the ensemble; it’s presently a hot eight-piece. Perhaps most inventively, the band includes a tap dancer, A. C. Lincoln, who intentionally plays the part of a percussionist more than a dancer. He favors the earlier, heavier style of tap called “hoofing,” which fits in perfectly with the Sardines’ highly rhythmic, hard-swinging sound.

Bougerol was born in France and injects the occasional French-language vocal into the mix, regardless of whether the song was originally in French or not. This sort of playful irreverence forms a central part of the band’s aesthetic, showing up in Palazzo’s frisky fugue-like intro to “Comes Love,” and in Bougerol’s discoursing on the “single-entendre” metaphors that blues singers used for dirty or “hokum” songs. They then launch into the hokum classic “Jelly Roll” with bouncy abandon. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

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

Review: Beth Leavel

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Despite this cabaret act being named “It’s Not About Me,” throughout Beth Leavel greatly relishes telling stories of her own long Broadway career. She barrels through it all with the ferocious commitment and incisive comic energy for which she’s most known.

She’s currently in between her much-loved turn playing Broadway diva Dee Dee in The Prom and creating the role of Miranda Priestly in Elton John’s musical version of The Devil Wears Prada. She opens with the song from The Prom which gives the act its title, blowing the roof off of Feinstein’s / 54 Below from the very beginning. Then she marries belting with a warm sense of welcoming in her take on Cole Porter’s “I Get A Kick Out Of You” the “you” in this case very clearly being the audience. In a typical pairing of sincerity with wisecracking, she notes she wants the show to feel like we’re all sitting around drinking in her living room – and then says that since everybody’s drinking we’re halfway there.

There are only about nine songs in the show, much of which she gives over to backstage stories told with much hilarity. Not only Broadway stories, but stories from regional theatre, where she has done such great roles as Dolly Levi and Mama Rose. And does she sing songs from those great roles? Oh yes she does, oh boy does she ever! I’m not going to tell you which ones; I’d rather you go “oh no she isn’t!” just like I did. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

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

Review: Clint Holmes and Billy Stritch with The Christian Tamburr Trio

On By dramaqueennycIn cabaret, review2 Comments

Cabaret legend Billy Stritch has teamed with jazz singer Clint Holmes for an act at the Birdland Theater entitled “Straighten Up and Fly Right” which pays tribute to the great Nat “King” Cole. Given this combination of performers, it’s not a surprise that the show is jazzy as heck. Pianist / vibraphonist Christian Tamburr and his trio up the jazz ante further still, at one point leaving Tamburr chuckling “so many notes, so many notes!”

Every arrangement, most of them by Tamburr, are wonderfully complex but leave a lot of room for spontaneity from any or all parties. They open with a swinging version of “Straighten Up and Fly Right” which relies heavily on the marvelous way Stritch and Holmes’s voices blend, especially when they harmonize. They harmonize a lot over the course of the evening, sometimes on an equal footing, sometimes as backup for each other, always to good effect.

Clint Holmes has established himself as a cabaret artist of great intelligence. He has been a Las Vegas performer for decades, but exhibits none of the negative qualities you associate with Vegas. He only has the good Vegas stuff: He is nothing if not sincere and authentic, and possesses a magnetic stage presence and a practiced but subtle showmanship that underlines what’s important in the show without overselling it. Stritch has a lot to do in the show, but Holmes has the lion’s share of solo singing, a wonderful thing, especially in those moments when he has his sensitive way with Cole’s more famous ballads.

Stritch’s part of the evening is more of the infotainment variety of cabaret, which I very much mean as a compliment. He unearths some of Cole’s more obscure numbers, and gives them nuanced, memorable readings. Together, they make very high end cabaret. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

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