Review: Sue Matsuki Puts Eddie Bruce Center Stage InTONY BENNETT CENTENNIAL at The Cutting Room

Today, I’d like to tell you a real-life cabaret community story.  I once heard someone say that they hated (their word, not mine) when people made reference to a ‘cabaret community’ because no such thing existed.  Now, I’ve been observing and reporting back on the people who make the art and show up at the shows since 2019, and I can definitely tell you that there is a cabaret community - I see it all the time, in some ways, every day.  One of the leaders in that community is Sue Matsuki, who did her first, ever, cabaret show sometime in the late Eighties/early Nineties.  She has been doing cabaret ever since, but she has been doing a lot more than that.  She has written reviews, she has taught class, she has produced other artists, she has mentored people one-on-one, she even produces two weeks of cabaret shows every December at Urban Stages when they present the Winter Rhythms series.  Indeed, Sue Matsuki spends so much of her year helping other people create cabaret that her own show schedule has taken a bit of a back burner, always to the benefit of the artists that she puts first.  So, when her friend Eddie Bruce decided he wanted to do a show in New York City, she hitched his wagon to her train and presented him, rather like a debutante gets presented during the season.  You see, Eddie is a Philadelphia-based artist who has tried NYC twice before, once at The Metropolitan Room, and once at 54 Below, but, as often happens with new artists and unknown entities, it was hard for Eddie to fill those rooms.  With his name on a bill with Sue Matsuki, the dining hall at The Cutting Room was full on July 26th when Matsuki and Bruce presented their duo show Tony Bennett CENTENNIAL, and, thanks to Sue, Eddie was introduced to many NYC luminaries who should know his name.  And guess what?  It’s a name worth knowing.

Eddie Bruce is a delightful man, a charming fellow, and a credible crooner.  It is appropriate that he and his BFF Ms. Matsuki chose to do a Bennett tribute show because there is much about his style and the timbre of his voice that is reminiscent of Mr. Bennett (with a Little Joe Cocker thrown in, vocally).  He clearly has a working knowledge of the career and history of his honoree, as well as the musical canon and style - all of this is reflected in his script (with bona fide facts and trivia from Bennett’s life) and his musical material (with true Tony hits like “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”).  Also, happily, large portions of the script are actually his own stories - stories about his life, stories about how Mr. Bennett’s work has impacted him, even a story about the one time he met Tony Bennett.  This keeps the tribute show personal, and the story arc accessible, and a good thing, too, because New York audiences are just getting to know Eddie Bruce, and the information being imparted is valuable (it is also voluble - one hopes that, at some point, Sally Scissors will appear to do a little trimming of the text).  Verbose or not, though, Eddie Bruce is a benevolent boy singer with a palatable presence of vocal ability.  Add to that his ardor for the topic at hand, and what you’ve got is an entertainer that stands on two solid legs.

True to form, Ms. Matsuki put Mr. Bruce in the center spot.  She gave him first billing and the major share of stage time.  Her mission statement for the performance was extremely clear, both in the structure of the programming and her own rhetoric.  She spoke so highly of her longtime friend and very passionately of her wish to lift him up and show him off, thus introducing him to the New York nightclub scene, and her mission was quite effortlessly accomplished.  She appeared onstage for a few fun duets like “Cheek To Cheek” (note the photo of them dancing), and dueting highlight “But Beautiful” (and it was), but Sue yielded the stage to Eddie for nearly two-thirds of the act.  Her onstage time was limited to a four-song mini-set of Cole Porter tunes arranged for her by her artistic partner in crime, Gregory Toroian.  Indeed, this writer wondered, at the show’s top, what a Matsuki without a Toroian would be like, since the musical director for this show was Dean Schneider, but the answer presented itself when Mr. Schneider accommodated Ms. Matsuki by executing (with Drummer Lew Leabman and Bassist Brian Glassman) the arrangements with which she was already accustomed, like two Toroian mashups of  “Because of You/Night & Day” and “Easy to Love/So Nice To Come Home To.”  For the rest of the show, though, the treatments for Eddie Bruce were mostly Dean Schneider arrangements.  Schneider and co. backed up Matsuki’s musical needs efficiently, especially during the highlight of her set, a snazzy and jazzy “From This Moment On” that featured some particularly pretty piano playing from Mr. Schneider.  The most fun, though, was watching the playful chemistry of Sue and Eddie make its way to the stage and the spotlight, as with their “The Lady is a Tramp” duet.  It’s always fun to watch the truly affectionate play together, although there were occasional remarks that the entire team was a might underrehearsed, and, honestly, it showed a little.  There were some harmonic missteps here, and some lost lyrics there, but there was a great deal of goodwill both on and off the stage, and an audience that was generous enough to laugh with the entertainers at the hiccups, and understand the difficulty of gathering together a gang of artists living in various cities. 

As for Eddie Bruce’s musical portion of the evening, the gentleman stayed true to Mr. Bennett, presenting some of the legend’s most famous recordings in classic style, as arranged by Mr. Schneider, whose treatment of “Old Devil Moon” especially stood out.  As affable a person as he is enjoyable a vocalist, Bruce made nice work of numbers like “The Good Life” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” but scored high marks with his rendition of “Fly Me To The Moon” and evening highlights “If I Ruled The World” and “How Do You Keep The Music Playing,” the latter with which he let the full power of his voice resonate through the room.  That power and that voice would appear to be a part of Mr. Bruce’s lifelong trajectory, for he treated the audience to a video clip of a younger version of himself singing on a television talent show back in the day.  It was a treat to see the flashback in order to get some context for his life’s work, and the footage sparked a happy feeling of benevolence for the young lad - the benevolence was contradicted, though, when the present-day Mr. Bruce made the unfortunate choice to deride the boy in the video by making fun of his youth, inexperience, and pompadour.   He might, perhaps, reconsider the comments for future shows; they’re not necessary because what he is presenting here is positive - everyone loves Tony Bennett, everyone loves The Great American Songbook, and everyone loves the joy associated with both.  There is no reason why they shouldn’t love Eddie Bruce, too, no reason why he shouldn’t become a regular presence in the New York City nightclub scene, that is, if he doesn’t mind the commute.  It would be interesting to see how his style, so reminiscent of Tony Bennett, lends itself to material that is not Tony Bennett-themed.  Maybe that could be something to look forward to in the not-too-distant future. 

Visit the Eddie Bruce website HERE.

THIS is the Sue Matsuki website.

Urban Stages/Winter Rhythms can be accessed HERE.

THIS is the Cutting Room website.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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