William TN Hall

Mark Dundas Wood
A photo advertising "Other People's Parties"—the recent solo cabaret debut of William TN Hall, at The Duplex—shows a hangdog Hall slumped at a bar, nursing a drink with one hand and propping up a cigarette with the other. His expression is that of a man resigned to the shabbiness of the world. But after you see...

Tim Realbuto

Mark Dundas Wood
Earlier this winter the Metropolitan Room generated much publicity for setting the Guinness record for longest variety show ever. With Tim Realbuto's "Bookseller in the Rain: A Tribute to the Music of Maury Yeston," the club may well have quietly attained another superlative achievement: the most singers and musicians to simultaneously perform on (and around)...

Diane Schuur and the DIVA Jazz Orchestra

Robert Windeler
"With Love from Deeds and DIVA," the Valentine's weekend show at the Iridium, paired West Coast contemporary jazz singer Diane Schuur with the New York City-based DIVA Jazz Orchestra (15 strong for this booking) on songs about love, appropriately to the occasion. This upbeat collaboration (the first for diva and Diva in several years) provided...

Raissa Katona Bennett & Kenneth Gartman

Mark Dundas Wood
One of the most appealing things about "3 Decades in the Dark—Raissa and Kenneth Go to the Movies" (at the Laurie Beechman Theatre) is the easy camaraderie that performers Raissa Katona Bennett and Kenneth Gartman have with each other. The longtime friends explain at one point that they'd wanted for years to work together on a...

Marin Mazzie

Robert Windeler
Many cabaret artists appropriate all sorts of songs to illustrate their life stories. But judging from her very winning recent show (a reprise from 2011-2012) at 54 Below, Marin Mazzie may be the only singer who chronicles her first two decades of musical influences in such specific fashion, employing the decidedly non-rock pop songs—including a bit...

Tim Di Pasqua

Kevin Scott Hall
Tim Di Pasqua, a veteran singer/songwriter in New York's cabaret scene for over two decades (by way of his origins in San Francisco), took to the small stage in Don't Tell Mama's brick room to deliver a show consisting solely of his own compositions. Remarkably, he informed us that it was the first time he had...

Pamela Lewis

Robert Windeler
In her astonishing new show at the Metropolitan Room, "New York State of Mind: The Songs of Billy Joel," Pamela Lewis both did admirable justice to the prolific composer/performer and re-interpreted his songs as singularly her own. Offering new, vibrant, self-created arrangements of 15 Joel compositions—both familiar and relatively obscure—from 1971 to 1986, Lewis changed...

Janis Siegel

Mark Dundas Wood
For listeners like me with fond memories of Janis Siegel's soaring, raucous gospel-jive vocals on Manhattan Transfer's big 1975 hit "Operator," the prospect of hearing her in an intimate setting like Jazz at Kitano was enticing. She did not disappoint. I caught the second set of the evening. Siegel arrived on the stage dressed in...

N.W.A. Show (Negroes With Asthma)

Mark Dundas Wood
These days the worlds of stand-up comedy and cabaret in New York City may occasionally intersect, but mostly, it seems, they just sort of brush up against one another. The Duplex, however, is one cabaret venue where stand-up shows crop up fairly often. In recent months, the "N.W.A. Show (Negroes With Asthma)" has appeared on...

Karen Jacobsen

Kevin Scott Hall
Newly minted American citizen Karen Jacobsen (born and raised in Australia) celebrated by bringing her pared-down but classy act to Stage 72 recently. Effortlessly charming, Jacobsen is an accomplished singer, pianist, and songwriter, and on this particular night it was just she, playing and singing and sharing colorful stories. One such story was how, as a...