People everywhere are or will be recounting tales of what they did doing the Covid lockdown, but few will have a souvenir of that time as brilliant and creative as singer-songwriter Eleri Ward‘s. In a closet of her New York apartment, she fashioned A Perfect Little Death—Suf/Sond, a recording that imagines what 13 iconic Stephen Sondheim […]
Between 1992 and 2017, singer and composer/lyricist Craig Carnelia (Working, Sweet Smell of Success) taught acting classes for singers in a studio on West 71st Street in Manhattan. His students included members of the New York City theatre community. They may have been prepping for auditions or working on a particular role or song. Sutton […]
Sometimes, listening to a brand new CD can be like discovering the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow, and that is just how I felt listening to the latest release from British jazz vocalist Sarah Moule. Stormy Emotions consists of 12 songs by lyricist Fran Landesman and composer/pianist Simon Wallace, including 10 […]
After more than a year’s drought, cabarets are finally reopening. And that’s very good news. I wasn’t able to get to Birdland to see Dawn Derow in her show Gypsy in My Soul—the Music of Eydie Gormé, but I was able to stream it the very next night. Obviously, streaming can’t compare to sitting in […]
In 1952, the iconic star Fred Astaire recorded a multi-album set of the classic songs he had introduced or featured over the previous decades. Norman Granz, the producer, surrounded the song & dance man with legendary musicians from Jazz at the Philharmonic, with Oscar Peterson on piano. The songs were, of course, immaculately sung, but the […]
Singer Amber Weekes’s newest release, ‘Round Midnight — Re-Imagined, has a classic, lived-in feel that allows the listener to luxuriate in its style, its romance, its intelligence, and its sheer musical richness while enjoying the rich storytelling and the trove of surprises to be found in its tracks. There is quite a lot of backstory and factual […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Article #15 in this ongoing series. The simple-yet-engaging standard “Blue Skies” has the distinction of being the most successful Irving Berlin number ever to debut in a Rodgers & Hart musical. It’s not clear exactly when Berlin had begun composing the song, but, according to biographer Lawrence Bergreen, the […]
What Are the Differences? Do They Prefer One Over the Other? Does Each Serve the Artist in Different Ways? Some cabaret-cum-musical theatre performers equivocate, but most, at least among those I interviewed, suggest that any performer who does cabaret can do musical theatre whereas the reverse may not true. In fact, cabaret hones your acting […]
All right, so you’ve read pretty much everything that’s ever been written about American songwriter Stephen Sondheim, and you’re thinking: Why on earth would I need to have something called The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia? Let’s put your Sondheim knowledge to the test with three questions (no Googling allowed!): Who was originally hired to play Fredrik […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Article #14 in this ongoing series In the most recent installments of “Cabaret Setlist,” we’ve looked at the brilliant-but-dark “Lush Life” and the splendid-but sad “When October Goes.” I love these musical explorations of anguish and heartbreak, but I realize they’re not the only sorts of songs […]