Feature: Monthly 'Birthday' Salute. We cheer influential cabaret artist MABEL MERCER, born in February 1900.

The calendar page has turned.  This time, our salute to a music figure born in the month we suddenly find ourselves in goes to a lady whose style and notoriety are what cabaret is all about.  Mabel Mercer was born back in 1900 on February 3rd.  The art of classic cabaret – personalized, intimate singing that brings out the lyric was epitomized by this influential, elegant performer. Although this year marks 40 years since her passing, she is still spoken of in reverential tones.  Known as “a singer’s singer,” she was admired by vocalists who came to see her and be mesmerized, such as Billie Holiday, Barbara Cook, Johnny Mathis, Peggy Lee, and Frank Sinatra who was quoted as saying that he learned everything about phrasing from Mabel Mercer.  Originally a soprano, her earliest recordings were of a few songs from Porgy and Bess back in 1940.  In her later years, her voice changed and her style was known as parlando, somewhere between singing and speaking the words. 

Born in England, she performed in Europe and the United States, including a series of residencies at elegant New York City nighteries where she often did her material seated regally in a chair, sometimes right by a customer’s table.  Her record albums, reissued in CD and digital formats, include a collection of Cole Porter material (he was another fan), sets of famous and undeservedly obscure excellent numbers, and live recordings of two concerts at The Town Hall shared with a kindred spirit in elegance, Bobby Short. She championed such writers as Bart Howard, Alec Wilder, and Cy Coleman. Latter-day cabaret singers Andrea Marcovicci and Joyce Breach recorded CDs in tribute to her, the latter in three volumes. Her honors included the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Books have been written about her life and career, there was a documentary film, and a DVD offers visual evidence of her special magic.       

Mabel Mercer’s devoted friend and manager, Donald Smith, started a non-profit Foundation in her name a year after she died to perpetuate her memory and the art of cabaret.  The most visible project of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, now headed by singer KT Sullivan, is the annual series of concerts called the Cabaret Convention, nights presenting many vocalists and some instrumentalists who embrace the classic Great American Songbook. Each year, the Foundation presents the Mabel Mercer Award to a cabaret artist carrying on the tradition.  Recipients include Karen Akers, Jack Jones, Ann Hampton Callaway, Amanda McBroom, Sandy Stewart, Jeff Harnar, and Sidney Myer.    

So, a toast to Mabel who made songs into stories.  A class act.

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