BWW CD Reviews: Masterwork Broadway's SEVEN COME ELEVEN: A GAMING GAMBOL is a Spunky, Winsome Reverie

No sooner than Masterworks Broadway's new release of SEVEN COME ELEVEN: A GAMING GAMBOL starts playing, listeners will find themselves transported to the intimacy of The Upstairs Room, lined with lavish, red fabric and soft light emanating from antique globes. We easily picture ourselves sitting at a small table amidst New Yorkers enjoying a night out on the town. As Julius Monk greets his live audience and us listeners, in our mind's eye we can see the lights dimming and we get lost in the enthusiastic performances of Philip Bruns (the father on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, the original Morty Seinfeld on Seinfeld), Ceil Cabot, Rex Robbins (1974 GYPSY Revival), Steve Roland, Donna Sanders, and Mary Louise Wilson (1998 CABARET revival, GREY GARDENS), who are accompanied by William Roy and Carl Norman at the plural pianos.

In New York City in the 1950s and 1960s, it was all the rage to attend one of Julius Monk's critically celebrated café revues. These revues were originally housed in The Downstairs Room, a favorite late-night spot for New Yorkers that was located in a shadowy cellar under an antiquaTEd Brownstone on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 51st Street. Demolition squads, in the name of metropolitan progress, ushered Julius Monk and his companions out of this humble establishment. They quickly relocated to West 56th Street, where they took up permanent residence in a mansion once owned by John Wanamaker. Here, they opened The Upstairs Room, which was originally the sitting room of the mansion.

In true revue fashion, SEVEN COMES ELEVEN: A GAMING GAMBOL, Conceived, Devised, and Directed by Julius Monk with Musical and Vocal Arrangements by William Roy, coyly makes light of many contemporary issues facing New York City and its denizens in October 1961. Witty and clever lyrics are set to some familiar tunes in numbers like "School Daze," which features a handful of nursery rhyme references, and "Captain of the Pinafores" set to Gilbert and Sullivan's iconic "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General." The recorded revue also features original songs with sharply comical lyrics as well.

Each track is a fascinating and opulent gem, even for listeners like myself that were born almost 24 years after the performance first opened. Stand out tracks include the peppy allusions to Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy in "The Jackie Look," the splashy send-up of a new hotel designed in typical Miami Beach fashion opening in New York entitled "New York Has a New Hotel," the animated and lively lament about being a high-profile male seamster in "Captain of the Pinafores," the hilariously prattling number that teaches audiences the origins of the dance trend The Twist called "Umbilicus Undulatus," the gorgeous elegy reminiscing about simpler times entitled "Christmas Long Ago," and the eruditely comic treatment of the Red Scare in "John Birch Society."

A true rarity, even in its original LP form, this surprisingly crisp and clean recording of the spunky revue is a winsome reverie of an era gone by. There is a perceptible and tangible decadence that permeates the air as the recording plays, alluring listeners and letting us escape into vivid, well-captured performances. These jazzy, tuneful nightclub songs brilliantly preserved on this album are sure to appeal our collective sentimental nostalgia of both New York City and the showmanship of the early 1960s.

Masterworks Broadway's release of SEVEN COME ELEVEN: A GAMING GAMBOL marks the first time this album can be purchased on CD. The recording of SEVEN COME ELEVEN: A GAMING GAMBOL was released on July 16, 2013. A limited quantity of Manufacture-On-Demand CDs, made available through Arkiv Music, and digital downloads can be purchased exclusively from Masterworks Broadway through August 12, 2013. The album will be available everywhere on August 13, 2013.

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Image courtesy of Masterworks Broadway.

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