The Jazz Bastards are a hot mess. Or so they’d like you to think. If they’re anyone’s illegitimate children, it’s not just jazz’s—Les Paul is one possible father figure, as are any of the deadpan comedians from Buster Keaton on down to John Belushi, and perhaps Elvis Costello and Tom Waits are great-uncles. Their two […]
More than once in This Is a Changing World, My Dear, her recent show at Don’t Tell Mama, Cynthia Crane referred to herself as a “walking obsolescence.” But, in fact, she and her show seemed quite timely. It took a wry look at cultural developments—some viewed as positive, but many not—that have left people of […]
What if, at the crossroads of your life—where you have to make decisions that will save you or damn you forever—you were not alone? What if a high priestess met you there, tall and sparkling, wise and smiling, reaching out her hand to guide your poor, fumbling human heart and teach you that you were […]
When doing any cabaret show that takes the form of a travelogue, it must be very tempting to open the show with “Come Fly with Me” (Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen). That ubiquitous anthem to soaring holidays is used in a television commercial even today, some seven decades after its composition. In his recent show […]
Both classically trained, but also separately exhibiting long-held pop and “legit” tendencies, singer Branden James and cellist James Clark have combined their considerable talents and have been touring internationally as a team. They recently introduced their new show, The Broadway Covers Project, at Feinstein’s/54 Below, which venue James (i.e., Branden) aptly announced as “the Carnegie […]
In their show 1968 – Let the Sun Shine In, recently at Birdland, Barb Jungr and John McDaniel dove into the amazingly rich pool of music that 1968 produced. It seemed a natural follow-up to their Beatles celebration, Come Together. Jungr, who has long been recognized as an incisive interpreter of popular music, was in rare […]
Raquel Cion’s show at Pangea is entitled Me & Mr. Jones: My Intimate Relationship with David Bowie. Like Bowie, Cion is a shapeshifter. With layered costumes by David Quinn, she peels back the story of her childhood, teenage years, and adult relationships with the icon in his many incarnations. With her low, textured voice, the music […]
Shana Farr has brought her latest show, It’s Not Where You Start: The Songbook of Barbara Cook, to the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Farr certainly looks the part. One can see in her the bright face of a young Barbara Cook, ready to take the stage, and the world, by storm. And, she sounds the part, […]
When I entered Pangea on the Lower East Side to see Tammy Faye Starlite’s show She Comes in Colors, little did I realize that I would be witnessing a 2018 reincarnation of a Warhol superstar. Her slightly exaggerated look with platinum hair, shockingly red lips, blazing eyes, and high-drama voice would fit in perfectly on a […]
The 29th edition of the New York Cabaret Convention, presented by the Mabel Mercer Foundation, took place October 9-12 at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Penelope Thomas, Gerry Geddes, Robert Windeler, and Mark Dundas Wood covered the four nights for us. Following are their thoughts. Cabaret Today! – by Penelope Thomas […]
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