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“Parents and Children”
Feinstein’s at Loews Regency – November 10-14
She was born Amber McAfee Maggart, but she changed her first name to Maude. Maude Maggart, so evocative of the past, is a better fit for this singer who continues to draw from timeless, artfully crafted songs that define life and humanity. When she started in cabarets, Maggart specialized in songs of the 1920s and ’30s. Today her theatricality and rapid vibrato fashion a voice for all eras, as she uses lyrics, melodies and her individuality to elicit the universal fragile threads of heartache and sensuality.
In her show “Parents and Children,” Maggart’s skill and discernment delve into the intricacies of generations and the influences they have on each other. She sings a trio at the top of the show, first urging listeners to “Be a Child” (Loonis McGlohon and Alec Wilder), her hands and body expressive and playful. Next, singing Marshall Barer and Anita Nye’s “What’s My Name?,” she is introspective, her arms straight at her side. The triptych ends with Stephen Sondheim’s “Beautiful,” which includes the lines “Pretty is what changes/What the eye arranges is what is beautiful,” from Sunday in the Park with George. Parents and children, like life’s beauty, are about changing, playfulness, wonderment and growth.
Maggart has a pretty demeanor and charm that can shift imperceptibly from bygone innocence to canny understanding. Talking about her unconventional childhood with divorced show-business parents and Marshall Barer as her mentor, as well as her own yearnings, she brings vibrancy and a whistling riff to Rodgers and Hart’s saucy “A Little Birdie Told Me So,” from their 1926 show Peggy-Ann; this was a mother’s advice to a young girl going off to the big city, warning that “…purest driven snow/Will sometimes drift, you know,” and that “little” bird can be a stork.
A contemporary often-familiar complaint by an adolescent daughter about her mother is reflected in Babbie Green’s “No Way, Jose.” A more benevolent remembrance than this is Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors,” showing the lasting impact of an impoverished mother’s loving act.
The heart of this show is the segment beginning with Maury Yeston’s “My Grandmother’s Love Letters.” Maggart sets it up by recalling the time she asked her own grandmother about her first love. Her grandmother asked, “Do you mean first love or first sex?” Maggart thought and decided, “First sex,” and her grandmother responded, “What kind of sex?” This ended the discussion, but it leads into Yeston’s song, a narrative taking us to a dusty box of old love letters tied with a ribbon, written 77 years ago by a 17-year-old girl. Maggart continues the segment with “First Boy I Loved” by Robin Williamson, originally made a hit by Judy Collins, in which a woman looks back over the years, remembering the pain and haunting nostalgia of her star-crossed young love, and imagining what life is like today for that other person.
George and Ira Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” begins dreamily, but confidently she strengthens her tone, as if boosting her resolve to find this ideal man. She adds a final salute to the Gershwins, citing the brothers’ deep love for each other, with “Love Is Here to Stay,” a song finished by Ira after George’s sudden death.
John Boswell provides impressionistic accompaniment on piano, with Yair Evnine on cello and guitar.
