Singer Jenna Esposito’s invigorating new album, More Amore: Songs from the Great Italian-American Songbook, is a family affair. Its rousing arrangements are by the singer’s father, Fortune Esposito. Her sister, Kelly Esposito-Broelmann, sings back-up, while her nephew, Charlie Broelmann, plays drums, and her husband, Jimmy Cannizzaro, serves as a percussionist and associate producer. Everyone knows […]
When I am teaching a vocal performance class, I always stress that just because a singer loves to listen to a song doesn’t mean that the singer should sing it. In the case of Susan Mack’s Music in the Air at Birdland, I would expand that to include if a singer loves a genre of […]
Scott Raneri is a good singer with an extremely likable stage presence. He has a rich concept for a show in Extra! Extra! The Extra Adventures of an Actor. He’s good looking and has a ‘60s nightclub entertainer vibe, slight and slick, nicely put together. Scott is fairly new on the scene: This is his second […]
Jane Bruce and TUCKER are such charismatic, charming performers that it goes a long way towards forgiveness of the flaws that pepper their new show, Jane & TUCKER: Stripped, at Feinstein’s/54 Below. Bruce, fresh from a Tony Awards performance with Jagged Little Pill, and cabaret veteran TUCKER have good voices, infectious energy, and winning personalities. […]
Susie Mosher is a hell of a good host. She wrangles a weekly Tuesday variety night with a rotating group of performers at Birdland Theater; when I was there on September 14, her crowd seemed to be a crossover between local Broadway and cabaret fans, tourists, and an enthusiastic office party. She was ready for […]
When Amy Jo Jackson says she’s offering the CliffsNotes guide to Tennessee Williams’s body of work in The Brass Menagerie, she’s being cheeky. It’s far too modest. But she would know that, because she knows exactly what she’s doing. The characters from Williams’s plays are emotionally linked with troubled members of his own family, and […]
The Randy Andys is a female vocal group with a rotating cast of singers. They harmonize tight, meticulously arranged versions of music ranging from the Great American Songbook, to Aerosmith (“Love in An Elevator” by Joe Perry, Steven Tyler; arranged by Tim Rosser), to Whitney Houston (“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by George Merrill, Shannon Rubicam; […]
Miss Hope Springs is the multi-talented creation of Ty Jeffries, the son of the great British character actor Lionel Jeffries. This is the recording of a concert in celebration of UK Pride Month 2021 with a program made up entirely of original material. She can sing, she can play, she can delight with witty and […]
By the time singer/actress Beth Leavel had finished her first number, “It’s Not About Me” (Matthew Sklar, Chuck Beguelin from The Prom), she had the audience tied up in a bow and in the palm of her hand; she did not let it go until she exited the stage at the end of her remarkably entertaining return […]
During COVID, I viewed any number of virtual concerts and cabaret shows but I can count the ones that succeeded on the fingers of one hand. Based on Chansons d’Amour by German-based actor/singer/pianist Vladimir Kornéev & WDR Funkhaus Orchestra, and on another audience-less concert I will be soon be reviewing, it appears that across the Atlantic they have […]
