BWW Review: Broadway Legend Chita Rivera Dazzles at Café Carlyle Singing Her Favorite Songs
by Alix Cohen
- Apr 21, 2016
When Tuesday night the formidable Chita Rivera opens her debut Cafe Carlyle show, An Evening of My Favorite Songs, with "I Won't Dance" (Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields/Jimmy McHugh), it's like watching a thoroughbred nose the racing gate. There's too little space on the small stage to do much more than shimmy, twirl, and display Bob Fosse-like arm moves; the performer exudes an urge to cut loose. At the ripe age of we-all-aspire-to-that-kind-of-unquenchable-joie-de-vivre, she shoots off sparks.
Corky Hale to Present I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU at Montalban Theatre, 5/13
by Tyler Peterson
- Apr 20, 2016
Corky Hale presents I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU - The Life and Lyrics of Al Dubin, at the Montalban Theatre, 1615 Vine St. in Hollywood. This new musical, features lyrics by Al Dubin, music mostly by Harry Warren, book by Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner, and musical direction by Gerald Sternbach. The production is directed and choreographed by Kay Cole.
BWW Review: With THE GREAT JAZZ STANDARDS, Michael Feinstein Opens This Year's Jazz at Lincoln Center's 'Jazz and Popular Song Series' With Appealing Vitality
by Alix Cohen
- Apr 16, 2016
I hear music, mighty fine music . . . Host Michael Feinstein sings with pristine bass accompaniment, as Musical Director Tedd Firth's Big Band filters in musician by musician. The sweetest sounds I ever heard . . . he continues as a light saxophone joins syncopated rhythm. Then whomp! All 17 players swing. Rarely have I heard sound design so perfectly balanced, appropriately favoring vocals. Feinstein remains smooth and easy riding the wave. 'You may wonder about the role of jazz in popular song . . . ' our host begins at the start of Jazz at Lincoln Center's first of three segments of the Jazz & Popular Song Series in the Appel Room. At a time when popular songs came and went with alacrity, jazz artists meeting for improvisational jam sessions needed pieces they all knew. Thus jazz mined popular music creating an intersection of the two art forms. Aided and abetted by four very different featured guests, Feinstein illuminates by example, not narrative.
BWW Review: Former 1960s Nightclub Performer Turned 1970s New York Mayoral Aide ARLENE WOLFF Continues Inspiring Singing Comeback at Stage 72
by Billie Roe
- Dec 4, 2015
In her recent cabaret show, More Than You Know (November 23 at The Triad's Stage 72), Arlene Wolff continued a comeback that has been 50 years in the making (which started last November when she performed at the Waterwheel Café in Milford, PA). Revisiting her youth and those turbulent political years, Wolff offered up a smorgasbord of delectable “Tales from the City” over a two-hour long concert of some 22 songs, presented in a two-act format with one intermission . . . Relying on an impressive repertoire of standards, Wolff vocally revisited the classics with a smoldering propensity, impeccable phrasing and articulation--never once dropping a lyric.
BWW Review: Conjuring Cabaret's Heyday, Andrea Marcovicci Warmly Shares Some of Her Favorite Songs at Feinstein's/54 Below
by Alix Cohen
- Nov 21, 2015
These are timeless: Manners, elegance, wit, sincerity, lively intelligence; the ability to make it feel as if a vocalist inhabits a lyric, and as if she/he sees and is singing to you. Andrea Marcovicci, who brightened the heyday of stylish cabaret, remains undiminished in these qualities. Those who shone when the city was filled with sophisticated boites/clubs, and all fine hotels had cabaret rooms, tend to make the rest of the world look shabbier today.
BWW Reviews: With His Intimate Frank Sinatra Tribute Show at the Metropolitan Room, RICHARD MALAVET Raises His Vocal Game
by John Hoglund
- Jul 19, 2015
Near the end of his exceptional new show, Very Good Years: The Intimate Sinatra at the Metropolitan Room, Richard Malavet recalls famed radio personality William B. Williams who once said: "Frank Sinatra is the most imitated, most listened to, most recognized voice of the 20th century." Williams did not exaggerate. Consequently, in this centennial year of Sinatra's birth, there will be many observations of the man known as "The Voice." For his tribute to Sinatra, Malavet did his homework. In this meticulously researched, respectful homage, he turns his talents to the more personalized aspects of the pop star's recording years, from 1939-1968, when musically, Sinatra became synonymous with songs of heartache and loneliness.
Lady Gaga Pens Passionate Cole Porter Historical Dedication
by Pat Cerasaro
- Aug 25, 2014
Modern music royalty Tony Bennett teams up with chart-topping pop icon Lady Gaga for a new duets album containing multiple American Songbook standards, including the recent #1 iTunes Jazz chart-topping single of the Cole Porter musical theatre classic 'Anything Goes', and Gaga shares her passion for Cole porter in a new social media post now available to view.
BWW Reviews: Kritzerland at Sterling's Upstairs at The Federal Salutes Songwriter Dorothy Fields
by Shari Barrett
- Jun 2, 2014
The 46th Kritzerland show on Sunday, June 1 featured one of the most influential female lyricists of all time, the great Dorothy Fields. In a time when Tin Pan Alley was almost exclusively a male-dominated club, Dorothy Fields rose to the top, first writing hit after hit with Jimmy McHugh, and later becoming one of the first female lyricists on Broadway and in film. Fields created some of the cleverest and most beautiful lyrics ever written, and was a master of the craft who forged the way for so many other talented female lyricists. There was no one like Dorothy Fields.
Nick Ziobro's A LOT OF LIVIN' TO DO Now Available
by Pat Cerasaro
- May 21, 2014
A sterling new debut album from up-and-coming vocalist Nick Ziobro featuring a slew of musical theatre showstoppers titled A LOT OF LIVIN' TO DO is now available to order.
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