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Paula West
October 30, 2009
Oak Room at the Algonquin – October 27 – November 14
One of the myriad reasons I like—no, love—Paula West is that she considers Cole Porter and Bob Dylan to be on an equal footing with each other. Actually, in her current Oak Room at the Algonquin tour de force, she gives Porter the edge with three entries (“Nobody’s Chasing Me,” “You’ve Got That Thing,” “I’m in Love Again”) to Dylan’s two (her opening “All I Really Want to Do,” “Maggie’s Farm”). In the funky juxtaposition, she’s taught me something about the place where Porter and Dylan overlap: They both get a kick out of writing many, many lyrics, and West gets a kick out of singing them all.
The second reason I’m consistently eager to hear West is that it’s not just Dylan and Porter I want to hear her sing—particularly after Karen Akers fell down on the Porter job in the room last month. I want to hear anything she chooses, because she nabs only what she wants to sing. Not the norm these days when people often don’t pick themes because they’re drawn to them but because they hope the theme’s commercial.
The third reason I hurry to catch West is that she picks her songs from the widest genre spectrum of any singer I know. (Maybe Natalie Douglas is as eclectic.) At least few others would include in the same show “The Music Goes ‘Round and ‘Round” (Edward Farley-Michael Riley-“Red” Hodgson) and “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes,” which has lyrics by Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson (music by John Wall Callcott), and throw in James “Sugar Boy” Crawford’s “Iko-Iko” to boot.
The fourth reason I make feet to West’s annual Oak Room gig—I won’t run through all the reasons, because there are too many for this space—is that every year she gets better, which is saying something when she started out so red-hot-and-cool. The voice is sultry and supple. This year, however, she’s added a huge belt and sustained final notes that not only fill this intimate space but would fill spaces many times larger. (Truth is, I wondered whether some of her blasts might have been too much for the gathered crowd, especially with drummer Jerome Jennings not holding back all the time.)
Returning to the cherry-picked selections: West has included Lil Green’s “Romance in the Dark,” which was—as every Bobby Short fan knows—a Bobby Short staple. Indeed, when the long-time joyful Café Carlyle tenant died, I figured I’d heard that simmering number live for the last time. Well, it’s simmering now right up to a sizzle, since Short was always puckish about its innuendos, whereas West is as earthy as loam.
She also mentions that with “Where Flamingos Fly” (Harold Courlander-El Thea-John B. Brooks) she’s resurrecting a ditty that Peggy Lee and Helen Merrill warbled but few others navigated. West’s dreamy version is enough to reinvent the piece. And as on everything else she polishes—and polishes off—she’s urgently supported by drummer Jennings, guitarist Ed Jennings, bassist Barak Mori, and pianist-arranger George Mesterhazy. (Note: Mesterhazy, who usually wears a cap, didn’t at the show I attended.)
As Cole Porter might have said while extracting a cigarette from a diamond-studded cigarette holder, “She’s got that thing, that certain thing that makes me rush to hear what she’ll sing, she’s got that thing, that certain thing.”
