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The Metropolitan Room
Tish Oney: August 14 Eddie Bruce: August 15, 16
No, there isn’t a new duo in town. Tish Oney and Eddie Bruce are two individual artists who performed different solo shows at the Metropolitan Room. I am covering both in a single piece because the parallels between the two cried out for it: Each show was a tribute to a major figure in American popular music (Oney celebrated Peggy Lee, Bruce honored Tony Bennett); each singer has released a recording paying homage to that figure; and each traveled from out of town to perform here last weekend. What’s more, I believe that in both cases, comparisons between the live performances and the recordings will prove useful.
Tish Oney
In her show, “The Peggy Lee Project,” Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist Tish Oney surveyed the songwriting talents of Peggy Lee, who wrote the lyrics to over 270 songs. The show is an outgrowth of the dissertation research Oney conducted when completing a doctoral degree in Jazz Studies. Many of Peggy Lee’s original compositions are relatively unknown, so Oney’s project does us all a service. “It Must Be So (music by Peggy Lee) is jauntily cheerful, “There’ll Be Another Spring” (Hubie Wheeler) is affecting and truly lovely, “Where Can I Go Without You?” (Victor Young) is classic early-’50s pop, and “Over the Wheel” (John Chiodini) has a catchy rhythm and an appealingly folk-y quality; all deserve to be performed more often. Oney also scored with a few of Peggy Lee’s standards: “It’s a Good Day” (Dave Barbour), “I Don’t Know Enough About You” (Dave Barbour), “I Love Being Here With You” (Bill Schluger).
Oney has a mellow sound—rather a cross between Susannah McCorkle and Peggy Lee, herself. In performance, she displayed a voice with few vocal dynamics and an interpretive style without many dramatic contours. As a result, though there was a musical purity to all she did, the middle portion of the show had a sameness that became a bit numbing. Things picked up significantly in the final four numbers, which were varied, animated (except for the lovely ballad) and strong. By contrast, her fine CD, “Dear Peg,” does not suffer from these problems. On it, her vocals have more forward energy than they did at the Metropolitan Room, and the sequence of the musical numbers provides greater shifts in mood. Also, at the Metropolitan Room she was accompanied by guitar (Steve Brown) and bass (Paul Beaudry); whereas the accompaniment on the recording additionally includes drums and percussion, trombone, and vibes—adding colors and oomph.
Eddie Bruce
Born and based in Philadelphia, where in addition to singing, he is a bandleader and musical events producer, Eddie Bruce has been performing the Tony Bennett songbook for many years. (Bruce’s singing career began when he was an adolescent; at age 13 he already had a manager, “a yenta from northeast Philly.”) In his show, “Bruce on Bennett,” which is also the title of his CD, he revealed himself to be a first-class vocalist with a voice that has the timbre of Bennett’s, but with less gravel.
His opening number, “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” (Billy Higgins, W. Benton Overstreet), established the dominant tone of the evening. Bruce’s performance style was what I have labeled nightclub singing, but of the highest order, and the Tom Adams Trio (Adams on piano, Jack Hegyi on bass, Grant MacAvoy on drums) sounded like a seven-piece ensemble. Among the other songs that received this treatment were “Old Devil Moon” (Burton Lane, E.Y. Harburg), a pairing of “The Good Life” (Jack Reardon, Sacha Distel) and “I Wanna Be Around” (Johnny Mercer, Sadie Vimmerstedt), and “Just in Time” (Jule Styne, Comden & Green). Best, or perhaps simply most striking, was the Gershwins’ “I Got Rhythm”; big and madly fast, it was thrilling.
Unfortunately, Bruce took this approach to a song he introduced as “Henry Mancini’s ‘Days of Wine and Roses’.” That introduction was perversely appropriate, for Bruce ignored the meaning of Johnny Mercer’s lyrics and delivered a swinging rendition devoid of any emotional dimension. I don’t know how Tony Bennett may have performed the song in concert or in later years, but his rendition in his 1966 recording “The Movie Song Album” is tender and poignant.
On the other hand, Bruce did a good dramatic job on Sondheim’s “Being Alive”—though he should not have begun it with his arms crossed, and the number would have benefitted from a gentler hand (or no hand) on the cymbals—and his handling of “The Shadow of Your Smile” (Paul Francis Webster, Johnny Mandel) was lovely, though the drums were a bit obtrusive. On this track of the CD, the drums and the same drummer are there, but their presence is more subdued; what’s more, on the CD there is, additionally, guitar accompaniment, which helps soften and add a wistful mood to the song. Since there was no guitar at the Metropolitan Room engagement, I believe it would have been wise to forego the use of drums for this song.
Bruce’s CD is quite wonderful. It has greater variety than did his show, and it includes the beautiful ballads “Emily,” “When Joanna Loved Me,” “Smile,” and “But Beautiful,” all interpreted with delicacy and sensitivity. The show would have been enriched by the inclusion of a couple of these selections. Doing so would have shown that Bruce is not only a superior vocalist, but also an artist—like Mr. Bennett.
Roy Sander has been covering cabaret and theatre for over thirty years. He’s written cabaret and theatre reviews, features, and commentary for seven print publications, most notably Back Stage, and for CitySearch on the Internet. He covered cabaret monthly on “New York Theatre Review” on PBS TV, and cabaret and theatre weekly on WLIM-FM radio. He was twice a guest instructor at the London School of Musical Theatre. A critic for BistroAwards.com, he is also the site’s Reviews Editor; in addition, he is Chairman of the Advisory Board of MAC.
