Club Review: Amanda McBroom’s “Crimes of the Heart,” with Michele Brourman
Gerry Geddes
"The Portrait" is one of Amanda McBroom’s most beautiful and beloved creations. I was reminded of it during her delightful new show, Crimes of the Heart, at Birdland, not because she sang it, but because I was amazed that she looked the same as when I had seen her decades ago at the old Ballroom...
Club Review: Ann Talman’s “The Shadow of Her Smile”
Charles Nelson
Unique is the best word—maybe the only word—to describe the song-stacked narrative that Ann Talman has created for her cabaret act at Feinstein’s/54Below. She calls the show The Shadow of Her Smile, after the haunting, Oscar-winning song that Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster wrote for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to emote to in 1965’s The Sandpiper—but that’s...
Club Review: Kavita Shah
Penelope Thomas
I first heard vocalist and composer Kavita Shah accidentally. Needing a walk after a long day last fall, I wandered over to 55 Bar, a classic West Village dive jazz club where many of the greats have played and where the cover is $5. (Ed. Note: 55 Bar recently closed.) It was Diwali, the Hindu...
Club Review: Madelaine Warren’s “Invitation”
Penelope Thomas
Madelaine Warren’s most recent cabaret offering, Invitation, featured well-chosen, often cinematically-inspired repertory from 1933-1989. Warren brought conviction and emotional connection to this set, packed with romantic songs that took her on an arc from joy to disappointment and back again. Madelaine Warren (Photo: Michael Bernhaut) Her legit soprano sound did take...
Club Review: “David Dean Bottrell Makes Love: A One-Man Show”
Gerry Geddes
David Dean Bottrell is an actor, a writer, and a fixture on the storytelling circuit in New York City and Los Angeles. He is perhaps best known for his unforgettably scene-stealing, creepy guest star turn on Boston Legal as Lincoln Meyer. His show at The Triad, David Dean Bottrell Makes Love: A One-Man Show, is...
Club Review: Therese Lee’s “Riding the Bus to the Red Carpet”
Gerry Geddes
Singer/actress Therese Lee had her first taste of those "fifteen minutes of fame" interviewing stars whose fame has lasted longer than Warhol predicted. Her story of getting there, and what happened when she did, form the basis for her highly entertaining new show, Riding the Bus to the Red Carpet, smartly and sensitively directed by...
Club Review: Wendy Scherl’s “The Sweetness and the Sorrow: The Songs of Marvin Hamlisch”
Betsyann Faiella
Wendy Scherl treated her audience to an evening of Marvin Hamlisch in her most recent show, The Sweetness and the Sorrow. She sang a variety of music with lyricists that included Howard Liebling, Carole Bayer Sager, David Zippel, and more. Scherl and Hamlisch are a good pairing. Hamlisch was such a versatile artist, and Scherl...
Club Review: “Andrea McArdle & Friends Celebrate the 45th ANNIEversary”
Gerry Geddes
Andrea McArdle made a glamorous entrance on to the stage at Feinstein’s/54 Below to a vamp from “Annie” (Charles Strouse, Thomas Meehan) wearing a voluptuously feathery black coat that put the “frill” in frilly. She doffed the coat within seconds, but she had achieved the effect she was after. Beneath the coat was a ravishingly...
Club Review: Robert Bannon’s “Rewind”
BistroAwards
Robert Bannon, a likable and talented singer, took Rewind, the title of his recent show at The Green Room 42, seriously, opening with a videotape collage moving backwards through his life, to the precociously stage-stealing performances of his youth. After the opening number, a rousing “I’m Still Standing” (Elton John, Bernie Taupin), he took the...
CD Review: Mark Winkler’s “Late Bloomin’ Jazzman”
Gerry Geddes
Singer Mark Winkler is the genuine article. To borrow a quote from a classic Blossom Dearie song, “If it were hip to be hep he’d be hep.” He is a laid back, swinging, hip jazz singer and, as his new CD Late Bloomin’ Jazzman highlights, he is one hell of a lyricist. In fact, the recording is...