Fred E. Ahlert

Starting in the back of the packed Feinstein's/54 Below house with 'It's a New World' (Harold Arlen/Ira Gershwin), Molly Pope has your attention. The band has played the overture; now it is her turn, crooning in silence. As suddenly as the first number ends, you're launched into the energetic 'Gotta Have Me Go with You,' Pope working her way through the crowd to the stage to join Brian Beach and Danny Bevins, her pair of enthusiastic backup dancers for the evening and the final pieces of her very complete transformation into Vicki Lester.

I hear music, mighty fine music . . . Host Michael Feinstein sings with pristine bass accompaniment, as Musical Director Tedd Firth's Big Band filters in musician by musician. The sweetest sounds I ever heard . . . he continues as a light saxophone joins syncopated rhythm. Then whomp! All 17 players swing. Rarely have I heard sound design so perfectly balanced, appropriately favoring vocals. Feinstein remains smooth and easy riding the wave. 'You may wonder about the role of jazz in popular song . . . ' our host begins at the start of Jazz at Lincoln Center's first of three segments of the Jazz & Popular Song Series in the Appel Room. At a time when popular songs came and went with alacrity, jazz artists meeting for improvisational jam sessions needed pieces they all knew. Thus jazz mined popular music creating an intersection of the two art forms. Aided and abetted by four very different featured guests, Feinstein illuminates by example, not narrative.

Margaret Morrison's HOME IN HER HEART will open at Stage Left Studio tonight, October 16 and run through December 17. The play with music originally opened last April as part of Cheryl King's 2012 Left Out Festival.

Margaret Morrison's HOME IN HER HEART, a story of bias, racism, and homophobia in 1939 London, will open at Stage Left Studio on October 16 and run through December 17.