Club Review: Susanne Mack’s “Fragments”
Penelope Thomas
Almost all of the cabarets I’ve seen in the last year have seen performers grappling to make sense of the pandemic lifestyle: the grief of missing their collaborators and audiences, and the gratitude and growing pains of returning to the stage again. Susanne Mack’s Fragments at Pangea tracked the process of putting the pieces back...
Club Review: Klea Blackhurst’s “One of the Girls—The Words and Music of Jerry Herman”
Charles Nelson
Klea Blackhurst is one of those rare songbirds who can build a show out of intelligent patter and amusing anecdotes. Her act, which she brought to Birdland Feb. 21, is called One of the Girls, subtitled The Words and Music of Jerry Herman. She comes by that title honestly: Herman himself designated her one of...
Club Review: Celia Berk’s “On My Way to You—Improbable Stories That Inspired an Unlikely Path”
Penelope Thomas
Celia Berk drew a large and enthusiastic crowd to the Laurie Beechman Theatre for “On My Way to You: Improbable Stories That Inspired an Unlikely Path.” Berk brought a room-filling sincerity and warmth that was wisely punctuated with humor. “Anything I Can Do” (Irving Berlin from Annie Get Your Gun) featured lyrics changed to “Anything...
CD Review: Melissa Errico’s “Out of the Dark—The Film Noir Project”
Gerry Geddes
During lockdown and quarantine, many people spent an inordinate amount of time bingeing TV shows and movies, searching through Netflix, Amazon's Prime, and other streaming services, for the perfect film or series or genre to fill their days and occupy their minds. Singer Melissa Errico immersed herself in the shadowy, mysterious, dangerously romantic world of...
Randy Edelman: A Life in 80 Minutes
Gerry Geddes
The very first contribution I made to cabaret was persuading my friend, Marc Allen Trujillo, to include Randy Edelman’s “The Laughter and the Tears” in his act and helping him to phrase and to stage it. I first heard the song on Nancy Wilson’s album, I Know I Love Him (it was later recorded by...
The John Pizzarelli Quintet: “Tribute to George Shearing”
Charles Nelson
John Pizzarelli's weapon of choice is his guitar, and the two have traveled down too many musical roads to list. As I entered Birdland the other night to hear a tribute to George Shearing by the John Pizzarelli Quintet, I was reminded of the day his father—Bucky, a marvelous and much-missed man of the guitar...
Club Review: Tim Connell’s “Dreamin’ Again”
Penelope Thomas
Tim Connell (Photo: Stephen Mosher) Tim Connell’s latest offering, Dreamin’ Again, featured music director and longtime collaborator James Followell on piano, and was directed by Steven Petrillo. The show was out for a second run at Pangea after having been delayed, just like most things, since March 2020. Connell’s song list was...
CD Review: Dawn Derow’s “My Ship: Songs from 1941”
Lisa Jo Sagolla
In her affecting new CD, My Ship: Songs from 1941, versatile vocalist Dawn Derow celebrates the World War II-era entertainers who comforted civilians stateside and soldiers overseas with memorable recordings of America’s soothing, rousing, and escapist popular music. Recalling such icons as the Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington, Derow performs 14...
Concert Review: The Andersons Play “A Jazzy Christmas”
Lisa Jo Sagolla
Peter and Will Anderson (Photo: Lynn Redmile) Ace clarinet and saxophone players, with clean-cut, boy-next-door good looks and winsome, twinkly-eyed personalities, brothers Peter and Will Anderson brought an infectious Yuletide spirit to the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space with their diverting program of jazz arrangements of Christmas music—not the...
Club Review: Ari Axelrod’s “Ari’s Arias”
Penelope Thomas
One of the many things that Ari Axelrod gets right on stage is sharing his gratitude. A medley of “Never Never Land” (Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green) and “Pure Imagination” (Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley) opened his evening at Birdland Theater, creating a fairytale mood; as if we were all going on a trip...
