Andrea Marcovicci

November 22, 2009

“Skylark: Marcovicci Sings Mercer”

Oak Room at the Algonquin  –  November 17 – December 26

As we go into the last weeks of Johnny Mercer’s centennial year, here comes The Oak Room at the Algonquin’s own Andrea Marcovicci with “Skylark: Marcovicci Sings Mercer” to toast the songwriting-and-several-other-things icon. For anyone drawing a deep breath and muttering, “Oh, no, not another show about Johnny Mercer,” I can only say you’ll never hear these songs examined as scrupulously as Marcovicci examines them. She has always been a superlative actor, and she brings that seamless talent with her. She’s so intent on expressing every thought and emotion, she often slows or hastens tempos or speak-sings a line according to how she feels that thought or emotion would best be expressed.

For instance, when she gets to the words “wonderful music” in Mercer’s exquisite “Skylark” (Hoagy Carmichael’s melody), she says, not sings, “It’s wonderful music,” as if she can’t contain her enthusiasm. Take note of what she does with the many vengeful “goody goody”‘s in “Goody Goody” (co-written with Matt Malneck) Arranger/pianist Shelly Markham and bassist Jered Egan are right with her for those musical vicissitudes.

And an exhortatory “bah, humbug!” to any wag out there who suggests Marcovicci speaks the odd phrase to disguise vocal problems. She’s been singing with a certain, sweet assurance in the last few years and has even added a definite gruffness at times. When she gets to the end of “One for My Baby” (Harold Arlen’s melody) in a torch-song medley, a sudden toughness emerges.

Marcovicci rates as one of our leading cabaret academicians (the other is Mary Cleere Haran), which means that the patter doesn’t simply skim the biographical facts. She’s going to analyze—point out characteristics other singers won’t. Marcovicci suggests that Mercer became more intellectually complex when he teamed with Arlen. She notices that children and their activities are frequent Mercer images and maintains that the reason has nothing to do with the wordsmith becoming repetitious, but instead reveals his longing to return to more innocent times in his Savannah hometown.

It was a fine idea of hers to sing Mercer’s most lucrative song—the “Autumn Leaves” translation of Jacques Prévert’s original—in French first. This gives any auditor who understands the language the chance to realize how different the two versions are, how creative Mercer’s is.

(The night I was supposed to see Haran’s Mercer show at Feinstein’s at the Regency, she was ill, so I can’t compare her tactics and conclusions with Marcovicci’s.)

Because throughout “Marc sings Merc” the songbird never lets her attention to dramatic value lapse, she is a model of variety. She sings all verses of “Spring, Spring, Spring” from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Gene de Paul’s melody) as a fast-paced disquisition. At the opposite end of the spectrum, she interprets “That Old Black Magic” (Arlen again) as the reverie of someone deeply in love and confused by the depth.

Marcovicci works the Oak Room better than any of the other regulars. She’s just a natural. When she sings the words “holding hands” in “I’m Old-Fashioned” (Jerome Kern’s melody), she holds a ringsider’s hand. When she sings “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive,” she’s the song’s exemplar. She accents the positive in several ways, including in her wardrobe—an intricately embroidered white dress over which she puts four different jackets chosen to reflect the changing moods.

Goody goody for her!

 

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