Dave Barbour News

Here are a few top picks to consider in NYC this week including Melissa Errico, a new work by William Finn, Mandy Gonzales singing Lin-Manuel Miranda, and more.

With two sets a night through Saturday 3/22, Cyrille Aimée and her Guitar Heroes may be your jazz heroes this week with their strong show at Birdland.

Center Stage Records will re-release four classic Jessica Molaskey albums – Pentimento, A Good Day, Make Believe, and Sitting in Limbo. Learn more about these albums and see how to listen!

Even while Ann Hampton Callaway is leaving her stamp on these songs, she makes certain to do right by the die-hards by using her glorious, rich, and resonant voice

With her artist legacy series, pop/jazz vocalist and songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway paid homage to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan on two critically-acclaimed CDs while staying true to her artistic aesthetic. Callaway continues that series with Fever: A Peggy Lee Celebration!, which highlights the songwriting talents of Lee.

As a part of her legacy series honoring great women in music, Ann Hampton Callaway focuses on Peggy Lee.

If nominations for the first couple of Palm Beach County music were held, vocalist Jill Switzer and multi-instrumentalist Rich Switzer would be near the top of the list of candidates, according to a recent issue of Florida Weekly.

Fans of the deliciously delightful co-hosts of The Morning Lounge on Legends 100.3 FM, now have a great opportunity to enjoy them live when they present FEVER: A Tribute to Peggy Lee, November 10-18, as part of the highly acclaimed Palm Beach Dramaworks Cabaret Series.

Bar Thalia, a narrow, uber-casual bar/café adjacent to the Upper West Side arts hub Symphony Space, has become the musical pied-à-terre of vocalist Marcus Goldhaber. Each first Sunday of the month, the artist presents two loosey-goosey acoustic sets with a guest singer and guitarist. The past Sunday's show featured vocalist Tessa Souter with Tony Romano on guitar.

With new Sunday evening Jazz Party host Carole J. Bufford performing elsewhere last night, the Birdland Jazz Club recruited drummer Ray Marchica and his vocalist wife Nina Hennessy (right), who rounded up some of their talented friends for an evening of vocal and instrumental jazz, new compositions, and golden standards. Marchica's band featured Sean Harkness on guitar, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Bob Quaranta on piano. Special guests included vocalist Marissa Mulder and composer/pianist Ian Herman.

Monica Lewis, a former Benny Goodman vocalist who headlined the very first broadcast of the 'Ed Sullivan Show,' was THE VOICE of the popular Chiquita BANANA cartoons, clowned opposite Jerry Lewis, Red Skelton and Danny Kaye, turned down a marriage proposal from Ronald Reagan and went on to play co-starring roles in such films as 'Earthquake,' 'Airport 1975' and 'The Concorde--Airport '79,' died on June 12 of natural causes at her apartment in Woodland Hills, CA. She was 93.

Back on April 1, when he posted his third compilation of delayed cabaret reviews from shows staged during the winter, BroadwayWorld.com's lead New York cabaret reviewer promised Number 4 would come with arrival of summer. Okay, so he missed his self-imposed deadline by a couple of weeks. but here's yet another catch-up column with critiques of a half dozen spring shows performed by Bryan Batt, Dawn Derow, Lynly Forrest, Dennis McNeil, Anastasia Barzee, and Nina Hennessey.

The cabaret gods must be smiling on this reviewer because this past Saturday evening my wife and I celebrated her birthday with an intimate dinner in between a couple of totally engaging shows from two lovely ladies of cabaret; the beautiful Jillian Laurain paying homage to classic Broadway show tunes at the Metropolitan Room, and the beguiling Stacy Sullivan in her MAC and BroadwayWorld.com Award-nominated tribute to Peggy Lee, 'It's a Good Day,' at the Cafe Carlyle. For me and the Birthday Girl, it was definitely a good night.

In her new cabaret effort, It's a Good Day: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee (running four more times through next February at the Metropolitan Room), Stacy Sullivan so adroitly articulates and emotionally inhabits the songs-and Lee's life story-through the astute arrangements and the well-crafted script, that it is almost impossible not to come away with a new appreciation for one of America's greatest jazz/blues/pop singers.

Award-winning, Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist Tish Oney debuts at The Metropolitan Room (34 W. 22nd Street, NYC - 212-206-0440) on Friday, August 14 at 9:45 pm in her touring cabaret show, 'The Peggy Lee Project.'

Award-winning, Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist Tish Oney debuts at The Metropolitan Room (34 W. 22nd Street, NYC - 212-206-0440) on Friday, August 14 at 9:45 pm in her touring cabaret show, 'The Peggy Lee Project.'