Lauren Fox

Robert Windeler
"Canyon Folkies" Metropolitan Room  -  October 11, 12, 26, November 11 How green was my valley—until it wasn't anymore. In the late 1960s and early 1970s I was living in a Los Angeles canyon, not Laurel but the next one west, Coldwater. At the start of my journalistic career I covered the Mamas and the...

The 23rd New York Cabaret Convention

Mark Dundas Wood
Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center  –  October 17, 18, 19 Gala Opening Night  -  by Mark Dundas Wood The gala opening night of the Mabel Mercer Foundation's 23rd New York Cabaret Convention—directed expertly by Rick Meadows—contained a number of bright, lively and even cheeky moments. But the festive character of the event was tempered...

Kathryne Langford

Mark Dundas Wood
"Jazz and Cocktails" Don't Tell Mama  –  September 14, October 5, November 11, December 9 Music critic Henry Pleasants once wrote of Peggy Lee: "She knows that when an actor stands stock still, characterization may begin with the twitch of a pinky, the lowering of the eyelids or a slight cocking of the head…." A...

Bettye LaVette

Robert Windeler
Highline Ballroom  -  September 28 She sang as a child and grew up in Detroit alongside Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding, but she never became part of the Motown Sound and didn't become a star. Yet Bettye LaVette made her first record at the age of 16, in 1962, and is currently celebrating...

Tony DeSare

Kevin Scott Hall
"Making Love Songs" 54 Below  –  October 2 - 13, 2012 Handsome Tony DeSare has been a rising star in New York and around the country since the release of his first CD in 2005. Now, with an upcoming CD that seems to be more pop-driven and indicates a targeted aim for mainstream success, the...

Shaynee Rainbolt and Donn Trenner

Roy Sander
"Two for the Road" Metropolitan Room  –  September 7, 14, 21, 28 Singer Shaynee Rainbolt has teamed up with musical director, conductor, and pianist Donn Trenner for a month of Fridays at the Metropolitan Room. Trenner has had quite an illustrious career, having worked with some of the biggest names in music and show business,...

Frank Dain

Roy Sander
"The Magic of Mathis" Metropolitan Room – September 8, 21, 28 Though in recent years he could be found from time to time as a guest vocalist in various spots around town, this engagement marks Frank Dain's first solo show in thirteen years. His return has been eagerly anticipated—and judging by the packed house at...

Judy Collins

Robert Windeler
Café Carlyle  –  September 11 - 29 Here's a lesson in how to maintain a singing career that still thrives after fifty-one years: always choose impeccable material; keep your voice in shape; focus on delivering the lyric without succumbing to the temptation to fall into the vocal or song style of the moment; and stay...

Michael Hughes

Mark Dundas Wood
"Mickey and Judy" The Duplex  -  September 10, 15, 20 We've seen it before, of course. The one-person confessional about how an obsession with show business, most often in the form of movie musicals, helped the subject escape from or overcome a difficult and/or lonely childhood somewhere far away from the bright lights of Broadway...

Jason Robert Brown

Mark Dundas Wood
54 Below  –  September 10 - 15 There are many sorts of songs in the Jason Robert Brown songbook—songs of quiet yearning, songs of loss, straight-ahead-funny songs. But perhaps the songs that this bountifully talented composer-lyricist-singer-pianist is most at home with are those that burn with determination—with the insistence on making happiness happen, on making...