When Anaïs Reno took to the stage at Dizzy’s on a recent late-summer evening, she seemed enveloped in an aura of grace and goodwill.
She’s a mere 21, but she began singing jazz when she was single-digit age, so she’s been around for some time now. She won the Julie Wilson Award in 2020 and has performed at Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden. She released her second in-studio album, Lady of the Lavender Mist, earlier this year (she also has released a live album). This was her first time headlining at Dizzy’s, although she mentioned that she had performed songs in other people’s shows there earlier.
Anaïs Reno (Photo: Marilyn Lester/NiteLifeExchange.com)
Reno’s first number was a familiar one. We heard the beat-beat-beat of Cole Porter’s tom-tom as she took us in recitative mode toward the refrain of “Night and Day.” When she got there, beautiful sounds were filling the room. She seemed to luxuriate in the music, even as she and her band created it. At one point, she intentionally “ran a red light”: not stopping to catch a breath where Porter had provided a logical place to do so. This lent urgency to the lyric.
Her next two songs, the goofily meandering “Gravy Waltz” and the intricately rhythmed “Moonchild” established her versatility. The idea of singing songs from Steve “Steverino” Allen and alternative rock band King Crimson back-to-back has probably never occurred to anybody else. But it worked for Reno.
Her talents are manifold and include songwriting. In mid-show she sang a quirky little number she’d created, about a “sad little swan.” The song was short, and she kept singing the theme in various iterations, but the lyric and melody were catchy enough to bear the repetition.
In a 2024 interview Reno spoke lovingly of the artistry of the late Carmen McRae: “The way that she annunciates the lyrics is almost Shakespearean to me.” Reno seems to have taken McRae’s example to heart. Her talent for interpreting a lyric became especially evident with her stellar take on the “The Man That Got Away” (Harold Arlen, Ira Gershwin). She introduced the song by explaining that it had taken her considerable time to find a way into it, but she at last had experienced a breakthrough. Her version created an excitement level nearing that of Judy Garland’s original, but with a stripped-down, raw-edged quality. As she sang the last desolate phrases, she stood motionless, as if frozen in a world of pain—it appeared as though the slightest bit of jostling would prove excruciating.
Another of the show’s highlights was “Les Feuilles Mort” / “Autumn Leaves” (Jacques Prévert, Joseph Kosma, Johnny Mercer). Reno made it something of a pageant. Starting off with the French version in a ballad tempo, she next took a jaunty pace, still in French. Then, she went even more up-tempo with the English lyrics, morphing into some dexterous and athletic scat measures (the only significant bars of scatting in the entire show). Finally, she took the number full circle, slowing down for a wistful conclusion.
Her closer was the title song from the Lavender Mist album: a melody by Duke Ellington for which she provided the brimming-with-imagery lyric. Remarkable.
Was the show flawless? No. I detected one apparently smudged lyric. On “The Man That Got Away,” I heard “The writing on the wall” when she should have sung “The writing’s on the wall.”
But that’s it—that’s the biggest demerit I’ve got for Anaïs Reno today. And it’s piddling.
She was blessed by a trio of fab musicians, making the near-perfect even better. Eager Dawn Clement on piano, fervent Sameer Shankar on bass, and playful Matt Wilson on drums provided the support. Three cheers apiece for all three!
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Presented at Dizzy’s, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 10 Columbus Circle, NYC, August 26, 2025.
Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. He began writing reviews for BistroAwards.com in 2011. More recently he has contributed "Cabaret Setlist" articles about cabaret repertoire. Other reviews and articles have appeared in theaterscene.net and clydefitchreport.com, as well as in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company.
