Review: Singer-Pianist Chris Barrett Receives a Warm Welcome at Pangea

The apt name of Chris Barrett’s springtime show was Welcome Back Again. And it certainly received a warm welcome in the form of warm applause and smiles from a packed room at Pangea that included longtime local fans and a few people who told me they were belatedly discovering the veteran. The evening’s titular number, which some of us remember from an album by another classy singer-pianist, Buddy Barnes, has a lyric ostensibly about a romantic reunion addressed to a lover (“Still in love with you, after so long…Welcome to my arms”). But it became, by extension, kind of an audience embrace that was returned in an affectionate, cozy way. It’s a lovely, lesser-known ballad I was glad to hear. This very welcome song about a welcome pointedly referenced the reality that the entertainer who, for years, was a regular presence at clubs and restaurants in New York City, had left town several years ago. He’d spent much time in Florida, too, but has relocated to Chattanooga, Tennessee, so annual Manhattan landings are now a kind of tradition for his admirers to be able to say “Welcome back (again).”  Comments addressed to patrons by name (including some back and forth with a relative) and conversations before and after the show made it clear that many in attendance were genuinely old friends and fans and colleagues treated like old friends.

Chatty commentary between songs was modest to the point of being shruggingly self-deprecating and blunt, saying he wasn’t a very good pianist when he began. He remarked with a sigh (and some exaggeration) that his time in NYC hadn’t resulted in long or frequent engagements at the more posh clubs or being fully ensconced with the cabaret “inside” group. He’s frank and unapologetic about not being a piano bar or cabaret chanteur who conservatively only sticks with the tried-and-true most standard fare among the standards of the Great American Songbook classics. He enjoys some of the post-1960s pop/soft rock hits and performs them with the same joy he brings to the showtunes and related fare. Apparently, those who know him from live shows and his albums know this, even if they do generally prefer more sophisticated or dramatic classics; so they aren’t likely to carp about the Carpenters’ hit “Top of the World” being included and the (relatively) more robust “Make Your Own Kind of Music” won’t make them feel surprised. But he remains genial. Genuine joy bursts forth with Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh’s “Hey, Look Me Over.” And a couple of Cole Porter items bring out his sly side – “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” and “I’m a Gigolo.” A more serious moment arrived with a pensive reading of “I Won’t Send Roses,” although it’s a stretch to imagine this sweetly sensitive soul at the keyboard could be a thoughtless, selfish, inattentive, emotionally blocked guy in real life.        

The blithe, beaming Barrett, now silver-haired and forthright about having been around the block and being around the music biz for several decades, spends some time remarking about the pluses and realities of being “older.” such as being less concerned about…well, almost anything. 

Convivial, casual Chris Barrett is good company and phrases lyrics as if they are conversations with his listeners, as if those ancient words we might know so well are just popping into his head at the moment. And his touch on the keyboard is pleasing – rarely flamboyant or forceful. Too bad he only comes to New York once in a blue moon. But, fortunately the moon was blue on May 15th.

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See pangeanyc.com for the venue’s calendar.

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