Saturday Night at Birdland

One of the best parts of living in New York is being able to go to a nightclub, pay a nominal fee, sit back and listen to amazing music for several hours. For a prime example, take this recent Saturday night at Birdland, when “The Jazz Corner of the World” was filled with some of Broadway’s best and brightest.

Walking up to Birdland's door, two girls who looked to be at most 21 years old squealed with joy when they saw the sign announcing Jason Robert Brown's 7pm performance.As the three of us walked in, they were bubbling over with youthful (and very un-New York-ish) enthusiasm, listing their favorite songs and wondering what they would hear when the concert began. And I have to say, after years of being surrounded by jaded and snarky theatre fans (like myself, of course), it was wonderfully refreshing to see how unabashedly excited these young ladies were. This is the next generation of Broadway audiences, and they're already well-educated and demanding connouisseurs. Good for them, damnit. They went to their table, and I took a seat at the bar. (By the by, the vanilla soda cocktail at Birdland is perfect for spring.)

At 7, Brown took to the stage with The Caucasian Rhythm Kings to play his most popular hits (minus “Stars and the Moon,” somewhat shockingly), including “The Old Red Hills of Home,” “I Could Be in Love With Someone Like You” and “Long Long Road.” He also performed a cut song (that probably should never have been cut) from his recent Broadway musical 13 and a number from his upcoming musical version of Honeymoon in Vegas. ("If I don't have any high notes by the end of the night, it's because I sang this song now," he warned before beginning.) His style, as ever, was casual and fun, and the music, as ever, was wonderful. No real surprises there, though it was exciting to hear some new songs mixed in with what has become Brown's contributions to the American Songbook.

Mostly Sondheim host Kate Pazakis joined the band to sing a lovely new piece by Brown called “Clarissa’s Last Stand” that will be on her upcoming debut album, and frequent Brown chanteuse Lauren Kennedy sang "Anywhere But Here" from Honeymoon in Vegas, "Still Hurting" from The Last Five Years and dueted with Brown on "I'd Give It All For You" from Songs for a New World. He knew his audience, and kept a good balance between the classic songs that earned him his devoted fanbase and his newer material. Naturally, throughout the show he made his signature wisecracks and quips ("We're going to revive Parade again, but this time we're calling it Naughty Marietta."), keeping the mood light and fun.

While the crew set up the stage for the next show, I chatted with Kate Pazakis about the new song she had sung earlier and would be presenting on her upcoming album.

“The producer of my album asked me what my biggest fantasy would be,” she remembered, “and I said, ‘I want Jason Robert Brown to write me a new song and I want to premiere it on my new album.’ She laughed a little bit and said, ‘All right, whatever.’” But several weeks later, the producer informed Kate that they would be going to LA to record a brand new song that Brown would be writing for her.  Brown sent them the track on mp3, Kate said, “and I automatically fell in love with it. He asked what we wanted and what we wanted it to be, and I said, ‘Driving contemporary. Something that tells a story and has a lot of emotion.’ And that is the song.”

To create the song, she says, Brown listened to the recordings of Kate’s December show at the late (and lamented) Zipper Room.  The overarching character created from the songs created the central figure of the song. The final product, “Clarissa’s Last Stand,” is about new love and going after dreams, she believes. “The song’s about taking a chance. We all have to take chances in life, and so this is her one chance to find her true love…We all have unrequited love at one point in our lives, [so] think we all connect to it.”

At 9, Broadway singer Jessica Molaskey (who starred in the original productions of both Songs for a New
World and Parade) and her husband, legendary jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli, began their set, combining (as they've described it) 42nd Street and 52nd Street...on 44th Street. Like Brown before them, they focused primarily on their established hits, celebrating what they have accomplished in their professional and personal shared lives. Mixing her Broadway savvy with his jazz expertise, they highlight the best of both genres, sometimes even mixing standards of both styles. One of their best-known combinations is a counterpoint of "Getting Married Today" and "Cloudburst" that alternates first verses, then individual lines of each song, creating a fast-paced and frantic song of joy and fear. Their bossa nova combination of "Circle Game" and "Waters of March," on the other hand, is a quiet study of life in images, using the ballad to create a narrative from Tom Jobim's aural collage and using the famous Brazilian song to create details in the overarching story.

Not all of the duets were counterpoints or medleys, of course--their rendition of "I Tried for Too Hard for Too Long" echoed Les Paul and Mary Ford (intentionally, Molaskey assured us), and their arrangement of “Glad to be Unhappy” was poignant and haunting.  Stepping out of their traditional musical styles, Pizzarelli sang a quiet and poignant "Sorry/Grateful," and Molaskey sang a bright “You’re a Builder-Upper,” proving their skills as multi-genre musicians. Molaskey and Pizzarelli were joined by John’s brother Martin on bass, Larry Fuller on piano, Tony Tedesco on drums (and occasionally a cardboard box) and 23-year-old Aaron Weinstein on violin, creating a jazz sound that is simultaneously textured and elegant.

New York City offers an amazing choice of options on a Saturday night. For fans of Broadway and Cabaret, nights like this one at Birdland are an ideal choice, and with luck, all of the performers will be back again soon.

PS: Personal message to the girls sitting next to me at the bar—You come to one of the best jazz/cabaret venues in New York and talk throughout the performance? Really? Really? Grow up, learn some manners, and come back when you’re ready to appreciate some of the finest musicians this city has to offer.

 

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