Club Review: Josephine Sanges’s “The Funny Girl in Me”

Penelope Thomas
In cabaret, the overall quality of a performer is often much more important than the beauty of a voice—or even the skill of a vocalist; I’ve gradually been won over to the side of acting choices. But Josephine Sanges’s sound stopped me in my tracks. She has the bright ping-ring quality of Streisand in her...

CD Review: Allen Austin-Bishop’s “Why Go?”

Gerry Geddes
It is always exciting to come across a new recording that is filled with surprising song choices from surprising sources delivered by a singer who covers them with a passion, intelligence and the personal phrasing of a singer-songwriter delivering his own material.  That is what I discovered in Why Go?, the new release by Allen...

Club Review: Mary Foster Conklin and Andrea Wolper

Gerry Geddes
Pangea Hot Summer Jazz Series, curated and hosted by singer Ben Cassara, continues apace with the inspired pairing of Mary Foster Conklin and Andrea Wolper.  The friends shared the vocalist chair in Art Lillard’s Heavenly Big Band for many years, but this was their first duo show. I wish that the well-programmed show had included a...

Club Review: “Broadway’s Next Hit Musical”

Penelope Thomas
You know that gothic musical, Haunted Garden, and its brooding lament that’s been done to death: The Pavement Grows Flowers While Our Garden Is Empty? It’s a chestnut in the American Songbook.  Cue record scratch. Um—no, you don’t know it. It’s never been heard before and you’ll never hear it again—it existed in an instant...

Livestream Review: “Anything Goes! Cole Porter and More Cole Porter!”

Gerry Geddes
Deborah Grace Winer The various Songbook Series at Jazz at Lincoln Center comprise one of the crown jewels of New York cabaret and jazz entertainment.  The latest offering was a tribute to an iconic master of American song filled with familiar, perhaps too familiar, songs presented by three vocalists and a...

Club Review: Mark Nadler’s “Harts’ Desire—A 1940s Musical Fantasy”

Scotty Bennett
Harts' Desire is a one-person tour de force created by multiple award-winning cabaret artist Mark Nadler. Nadler tackles a demanding process and achieves a masterful production; he creates a full two-act musical principally from the works of Moss Hart and Lorenz Hart and presents it on a small cabaret stage.  Mark...

Club Review: Erik Leuthäuser’s “In the Land of Ronny Whyte”

Gerry Geddes
Erik Leuthäuser Berlin-based jazz singer/composer Erik Leuthäuser made his American debut recently at Pangea as he celebrated the forthcoming release of a new tribute album to New York music legend Ronny Whyte, with Whyte himself as a special guest.  Multi-tattooed Leuthäuser has a goth, gender-fluid look and wardrobe that make his...

Club Review: Zachary Clause’s “On a Beach”

Gerry Geddes
Zachary Clause In the new show, On a Beach, written and performed by Zachary Clause, the singer/actor presented a kaleidoscopic journey through beaches, Hollywood, gay life, the Great American Songbook, mortality, history, survival, therapy, air travel, age, and his own past and present. He established a beachhead of sorts on the...

Club Review: Danny Bolero’s “They Call Me Cuban Pete–The Music and Genius of Desi Arnaz”

Betsyann Faiella
An older Desi Arnaz, played by Broadway actor Danny Bolero (In the Heights, and the currently-running Plaza Suite), enters the Brick Room at Don’t Tell Mama reminiscing about the past complete with some ambient sounds that seem like memories he is reliving. Then, with some of Arnaz’s recorded music in the background, the real band kicks...

Club Review: Lauren White with The Quinn Johnson Trio

Gerry Geddes
The casual elegance of the cabaret room at Pangea on an early June night was the perfect setting for Lauren White’s celebration of the COVID-delayed release of her CD, Ever Since the World Ended, as part of Ben Cassara’s Spring Swing Jazz Series. It was a delightful showcase for her laid-back, conversational yet swinging vocals...