Review: Liam Forde Brought Singing & Chatting & Chatting & Singing To Tell All That It's GREAT TO BE HERE At The Birdland Theater

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in cabareT to bring you ALL the Tea!

Bobby's Monday night trip to the Birdland Theater introduced our ears to singer/songwriter/musician/actor gay-of-all-trades - Liam Forde. Releasing his new CD of original modern jazz offerings, Forde's voice, acting, musicianship, and composing style created a jazzpoprockbroadway fusion that seemed to come from all those directions at once. The sounds of GREAT TO BE HERE coalesced (what? Bobby knows words!) into music that moved from tuneful to dissonant from major to minor and back again. Throughout the night this adorable, lithe, mop-headed, bubbly, unabashedly queer performer sang, played, and chatted and chatted with some more singing and playing to an appreciative room, delivering some of the most original jazz surprises little Bobby has experienced in some time. It was the blending of styles, my lambs, that made for all of those surprises. You see, Forde may be a predominantly smooth jazz composer, but he has an already impressive list of acting credits Off-Broadway and in Regional Theatre. Educated at the Boston Conservatory, it's hard to pin down which department would have been his focus, theatre or music, but given his multi-instrumental playing and his composition strengths, Bobby is going to go with - one of those annoyingly talented Music Majors with a Theatre Minor kinda guys... Unless he's worse - A Double Major! Egads! Liam's ability to sing his setlist in a tenor voice that seemed to have no limit to its top notes was surpassed, if you can believe it, by his expert scat singing, his piano playing, and doggone if he didn't also demonstrate incredible skill as a floutist by blowing on his flout.

One could most definitely hear the influences of The Broadway in works that tell stories and conjure images of time and place, such as PARIS WHEN IT'S GREY and his beloved adopted city in PLAZA HOTEL, but for this rainbow boy, the highlight of the night came in the second half of the setlist, when, after professing his undying love for Noel Coward, Forde launched into his Coward-inspired jazz/novelty/comedy number, MRS. DUDLEY, a paean to a retired garden slug who, after tasting a cannabis cookie, heads out to see the world while hilariously scat singing on a Doobie, Doobie, Doo, etc. Liam stayed in the garden for his next ode to his own NYC window box, the indescribably beautiful TOMOATOES IN AUGUST where he touchingly, almost painfully illustrated a New Yorker's need for living greenery amongst all the steel and mortar. Another song from the window box was an encore titled GERANIUMS that brought the full measure of La Liam's belting/legit mixed tenor voice in such a satisfying way that he had to add a second encore, this time from his beloved Coward Canon. His rendition of I'LL SEE YOU AGAIN was a love song to his audience, none of whom wanted to let him go, but there was promise in his voice that we would all come together again.

GREAT TO BE HERE is one of those musical offerings born out of the pandemic and written in an extreme time that demanded creation from those who write, compose, play, and perform. The fact that Liam Forde does all of the layers of this creation so well makes him a marvel. Along with his superb singing and piano playing, his flute playing, quite frankly, was some of the best little Bobby has ever heard, and Bobby is not the biggest fan of that instrument on its best day. Sadly, my lambs, without a setlist/press packet, the names of the excellent musicians that played with Forde will go unmentioned here. That little hiccough aside, the music heard on Monday night in the Birdland Theater was of the highest caliber, sung and played by Forde and his instrumental cohorts in ways that were such real jazz magic making this young man one to watch for as we predict a bright, BRIGHT future is headed his way, and for that we give him...

5 Out Of 5 Rainbows

Liam Forde Spins A Webby: HERE

You Can DL GREAT TO BE HERE On The iTunes: HERE

Check Out His Insta-Pictograms: HERE

Ande Followe On Ye Olde FaceBooke: HERE

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