BWW Reviews: Bada BING! New Kid On the Jazz Block Shakes and Stirs the Metropolitan Room

Cabaret Reviews and Commentary by Stephen Hanks

On a steamy Thursday night at the Metropolitan Room it was about to get even hotter. With his personal logo projected on the white backdrop and his three-piece band called "The Secret Service" playing a pulsating and hand-clapping instrumental, dark and handsome 28-year-old Devin Bing struts through the audience, his skin-tight dress shirt already drenched with sweat by the time he reaches the stage and straps a synth keyboard around his neck. Bing leads the clapping before pounding the synth, emanating guitar-like chords and cooing the first few bars of "Angel Eyes" as a smooth ballad. Then the song transitions into a jazzy groove where Devin can delve into some scatting and introduce his black jacketed and black tie-clad bandmates (Gavi Grodsky on guitar, Michael Feinberg on bass, Blaise Lanzetta on drums).

Bing's July 18th show (the fourth of five dates at the Metropolitan Room over this spring and summer, with the next one on August 15) may have been performed in a cabaret club, but it was more a contemporary jazz/pop concert than it was a "cabaret show." The story theme on this occasion was "Devin Bing," as the ambitious young crooner strives to establish himself as the second coming of his musical hero Harry Connick, Jr., but with Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, and Michael Buble colors in his cooly-delivered vocals of original tunes and covers of jazz and Great American Songbook classics. On stage, Bing conveys a confidence that verges on cockiness, but he sprinkles just enough self-deprecation onto his swagger to avoid a flavor of smarminess.

For a packed room of friends and fans (including pockets of adoring 20ish females and small groups that were yakking annoyingly through almost the entire show), Bing started with covers of three standards. Obviously inspired by Connick, who in the late '80s would sing a stylized "Fly Me To The Moon" as part of his homage to Frank Sinatra, Bing's version of Bart Howard's song featured a surprisingly strong mid-tempo jazzy/bluesy arrangement behind a smooth vocal. [See the music video version below.] His segue into Victor Young and Edward Heyman's classic "When I Fall In Love" began promisingly with another slow jazz groove, but Bing's interpretation of the lyric soon got lost, as he infused it with Motown soul and sounded like a cross between Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson in their falsetto primes. While Bing displays a keen affinity for arranging, especially for his own voice, he tried to do way too much with this number and should have kept it simple.

But faster than you can say, "Bada BING!," he quickly recovered on the next song that launched the best section of the set. On a Chet Baker-inspired version of Rodgers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine," Bing began by pursing his lips and emitting trumpet-like sounds--totally on pitch--as if they were coming from Baker's horn (mimicking pressing the trumpet buttons while holding the microphone), before moving to the piano for a deliciously cool vocal on the rest of the song. On this number alone, one could see, hear and feel Bing's star potential.

The rest of the set showcased the singer's own compositions and were a decidedly mixed bag. "Just Surrender" is a nifty uptempo tune in the Connick mold and featured a solid toe-tapping hook. Bing proved that he did have the ability to write a deeper, more serious lyric when after telling of his family's Long Island home being destroyed by a fire, he delivered the emotional, piano-only ballad "Be Alright," which again revealed some Timberlake and Usher vocal influences. Later, Bing's band was outstanding on the languid R&B/jazz groove to the make-out song "Lovin' You's So Easy." But here, as well as on the bouncy dance-club number, "You Got Me," Bing was more impressive as a singer/musician than as a composer.

"I'm smooth, I'm smooth, baby I'm smooth . . . Got more style than a Rolex watch," Bing sang during his original "Smooth," a swinging pop tribute to his favorite fictional character, James Bond. When Bing told the audience he was about to sing the Bond-inspired "Shaken Not Stirred," the title track of his upcoming CD, one hoped for a melody and lyric as stylish and sophisticated as a Double-O-Seven theme song. But instead, the number was a simple and frothy early '60s dance/pop tune that Bing led as an audience singalong with the lines, "Shake, shake, shake it like you don't care/Shake, shake, shake it like a cocktail." Even James Bond would have come up with a slicker rhyming pattern on that one. (Please click on Page 2 below to continue.)

If there was one thing the Metropolitan Room audience needed by the end of this high-energy, heat-inducing set, it was some cooling air and Bing brought the show home with his solid, uptempo, R&B/pop tune "Summer Breeze." Reminiscent of late '60s hits by groups like the Grass Roots, the song also included a brief riff on Electric Light Orchestra's "Evil Woman." One line in that song goes: "There's an open road that leads nowhere/Just make some miles between here and there." Devin Bing is making his miles on the open musical road and it's clear where he wants that road to lead. With a little more life and performing experience to inform and hone his craft, and a clearer picture of who he truly wants to be as an artist in both style and substance, he's certainly multi-talented and driven enough to get there.

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