ALL EYES ON: LAINIE KAZAN Richard Jay-Alexander Shares His Chat and Visit With The Iconic Star As She Celebrates Her 85th Birthday

Ms. Kazan was on my radar for as long as I can remember when I started to get interested in theatre, music and show business and had “secret” subscriptions to magazines that focused on those passions. I grew up in a small town and, when those magazines arrived, I was lost in a world I just knew I had to be a part of. When we began our first conversation, nearly a year ago, I told Lainie I went to see her perform at The Playboy Club in New York City. The drinking age back then was 18 years old, but I remember wearing a dark raincoat over my suit, to look older. We both laughed and I do remember the glamour, the multiple shows each night and the cigarette smoke. I don’t know how they did it. There was Lainie’s Room East, in NYC and Lainie’s Room West, in L.A., both overseen by Hugh Hefner, since Lainie’s popularity skyrocketed, after posing nude for the October, 1970 issue of PLAYBOY.

Ms. Kazan is another stellar graduate of Erasmus High School, in Brooklyn, and she was a looker and talented, eventually finding her way to HB Studios. She has performed in an endless array of shows on stage, in films and on television and enjoyed a remarkable recording career.

While we all search for new things to listen to and everybody looks for the hot, new trend, I share with you “something cool.”  Something very, very cool and that includes, perhaps, an introduction for the unindoctrinated, to Lainie Kazan, recording artist.  And for those who are well aware of who she is and her career, the extraordinary news that this past year, four of her albums were recently re-released and are currently available for streaming, is something to celebrate. Remember, in the ‘90s, when record companies started making compilations of Lounge, Cocktail and Swingin’ music for social gatherings? Well, this beats them all!

Signed to MGM Records, these four albums: RIGHT NOW! (1966) Lainie Kazan (1966), THE LOVE ALBUM (1967) and LOVE IS LAINIE (1968) have all been remastered from the original tapes and are available via Universal Music Group’s Republic Records. And, trust me, they are gold for your ears.

Just take a look at the selections on these albums:

Right Now! (1966)

1) Blues in the Night (Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer)
2) Danny Boy (Frederic Weatherly)
3) Blue Skies (Irving Berlin)
4) Joey, Joey, Joey (Frank Loesser)                      
5) House of Flowers (Harold Arlen / Truman Capote)                  
6) Black, Black, Black (Traditional)     
7) My Man’s Gone Now (George Gershwin /Ira Gershwin / DuBose Heyward)   
8) No More Songs for Me (David Shire / Richard Maltby, Jr.)                  
9) I Cried for You (Gus Arnheim / Abe Lyman / Arthur Freed)  
10) Feeling Good (Anthony Newley / Leslie Bricusse)                    
11) Don’t Like Goodbyes (Harold Arlen / Truman Capote)
12) I’m Shooting High (Jimmy McHugh / Ted Koehler)

Lainie Kazan (1966)

1) I’m All Right Now (Joe Lubin)
2) I Will Be Waiting for You (I Will Wait for You) (Michel Legrand / Norman Gimbel)
3) Peel Me a Grape (Dave Frishberg)
4) The Trolley Song (Hugh Martin / Ralph Blane)
5) I Loves You Porgy (George Gershwin /Ira Gershwin / DuBose Heyward)
6) Can I Trust You? (Memo Remigi / Paul Vance / Eddie Snyder)
7) Summertime (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin / DuBose Heyward)
8) Lark Day (Art Podell / Walter Schorr)
9) Show Me (Frederick Loewe / Alan Jay Lerner)
10) (We’ll Meet) In the Spring (Peter Daniels) 
11) What Now My Love (Gilbert Bécaud / Carl Sigman) 

The Love Album (1967)

1) Until It’s Time for You to Go (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
2) I’m a Fool to Want You (Jack Wolf / Joel Herron / Frank Sinatra)
3) I Have Dreamed (Richard Rodgers / Oscar Hammerstein II)
4) Sweet Talk (Cy Coleman / Floyd Huddleston)
5) Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez)
6) If You Go Away (Jacques Brel / Rod McKuen)
7) Take It Slow, Joe (Harold Arlen / E. Y. Harburg)
8) I’ve Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good (Duke Ellington / Paul Francis Webster) 
9) Once (Claus Ogerman / Guy Wood)
10) If You Were the Only Boy in the World (Nat D. Ayer / Clifford Grey)
11) Warm All Over (Frank Loesser)
12) Everybody Loves Somebody (Irving Taylor / Ken Lane) 

Love Is Lainie (1968)

1) A House Is Not a Home (Burt Bacharach / Hal David) 
2) The Look of Love (Burt Bacharach / Hal David)  
3) When I Look in Your Eyes (Leslie Bricusse)
4) Sunny (Bobby Hebb)
5) Night Song (Rod McKuen / Mort Garson)
6) An Angel Died (I Saw an Angel Die) (Bobbie Gentry) 
7) They Don’t Give Medals (To Yesterday’s Heroes) (Burt Bacharach / Hal David) 
8) How Can I Be Sure (Felix Cavaliere / Eddie Brigati) 
9) Flower Child (Sydelle Kern / Jean Galvis)
10) The Windows of the World (Burt Bacharach / Hal David) 
11) Song Without Words (Jacques Brel / Rod McKuen)

You can easily find them on Spotify, Apple Music and other digital platforms.

These albums were largely conceived and conducted by Peter Daniels, who Lainie met while in the original Broadway production of FUNNY GIRL, where Lainie understudied Barbra Streisand and Daniels conducted the orchestra. They eventually married and had quite a musical kinship.

I asked Lainie about being a female recording artist in a business run by men and she admitted to often fighting hard for every song. Her recollections of this period of time and her recording history were quite clear and she could not contain how thrilled she was that these particular four albums have been remastered and put out there for the world to hear.

I was so beguiled by her that when she told me she hadn’t performed live in a long time, but was planning to do so, soon, at Vibrato Grill Jazz, in Los Angeles, I got excited.  It’s one of the few venues I had never been in and I immediately told her that I would drive to L.A. and be there. And I’m so glad I did. I even bumped into Michele Lee there!

This is where “legendary” status really gets your blood going. The place was packed and quite beautiful. I was happy to see the musicians and, then, there she is: Lainie Kazan. She was about to have her 84th birthday and gave us everything she had. The stories, the songs, the passion, the love for her family, her love of music and how f****** thrilled she was to not only be there and raise her voice, but that there was an audience equally as thrilled to see her!

When a star with this kind of experience and seasoning takes over a stage, you never worry, because it almost doesn’t matter whether they are speaking to us or singing, as every bit of it is new and happening in the moment and, for her, much of it spontaneous, making it doubly exciting for us. I could have stayed there for hours.

After the show, Lainie was happy and relieved and proud and exhausted and it was tangible. I got to give her a hug and I knew I had witnessed something special.

So, today, Lainie, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to YOU and to all of you reading, I hope you’ll take a deep dive into her career, her extraordinary history and her recordings. It’s the best way we can all send our love to her and celebrate the body of work she has given us, because, trust me, it’s not just BEACHES!

In closing, whenever I have these ALL EYES ON chats, I ask if the star ever finds themself cruising through their stuff that might be on the internet, and, if so, do they have a favorite? Without hesitation, Lainie Kazan told me this is her favorite:

Lainie Kazan, Richard Jay-Alexander and Dan Guerrero at Vibrato Grill Jazz on May 7, 2024