Unsavory

Deb Peterson broke the story in the Post-Dispatch earlier today and Chris Gibson, who went to review Elsie Parker tonight for KDHX-FM (where I'm the senior performing arts critic), confirmed it: Savor is closing its doors after the Debby Lennon/Carolbeth True show on June 28th.

Chris said Jim Dolan - the producer of the Cabaret at Savor series and the master of ceremonies for every performance - wasn't there tonight and the woman who was doing the seating apparently had no idea that he was there to review the show. It's not clear whether she was an employee of Savor or Jim's organization.

This is pretty awful news for the cabaret scene locally. Savor was the best all-around cabaret room in town. I went to the press preview for the Kranzberg Center Wednesday (the 21st) and while their cabaret space is promising, the seating will need to be planned properly if it's going to work at all. I have no idea whether they're going to do that or not.

Jim was apparently caught flat-footed by this. His web site is still advertising shows through August 23rd. It looks like Savor made the decision very abruptly.

UPDATE, June 28th: According to an anonymous posting on Ian Froeb's Gut Check restaurant blog, "the owner only knew 5 days before the doors closed for good" and the business "owed over 50 grand to the state in taxes ". How things could get to the point where that would come as a surprise is a question not yet addressed.

The Winning West

Paula West is making her third St. Louis appearance (and her second in the Cabaret at Savor series) this week, which presents me with a bit of a problem. What can I say about her magnetic and compelling performance that I didn't say the last two times? I've already praised her ability to combine the improvisatory spirit of jazz with the fidelity to the songwriter's intent that characterizes a good cabaret performance. I've already described her act as "the best of both worlds". Where do I go from there?

Perhaps I should start by admiring the variety of material on the program. From the opening instrumental blues jam based on a tune by the late Boise-based pianist Gene Harris to the mesmerizing closing performance of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", Ms. West and company provide an impressive variety of songs culled from widely divergent genres.

There are American Songbook standards like Sammy Cahn's "Pocketful of Miracles" (from the 1961 Frank Capra film), "Something Good" (which Richard Rogers wrote for the film version of The Sound of Music) and Rogers and Hart's "Isn't It Romantic" (from 1932 film Love Me Tonight where it's sung by Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, among others, in a montage sequence). But there are also the Dylan songs, a rollicking version of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya", Jobim's stream-of-consciousness "Waters of March" - the composition of which is said to have been a form of psychotherapy for the Brazilian legend - and the earthy wit and wisdom of "The Goodbye Song", adapted from a Pearl Bailey monologue.

That last one, by the way, is one of several numbers that cast a gimlet eye on that whole Mars/Venus thing. Oscar Brown, Jr.'s "The Snake", about the folly of believing that love alone can change anyone, is another. Ms. West is no starry-eyed romantic, and her wry take on the business of "breakin' in the next man" gives a bit of a feminist slant to the evening. A distinct, personal point of view is one of the elements of a solid cabaret show so that, as they say, is a good thing.

Ms. West delivers all of this with the vocal flexibility and virtuosity that her fans have come to expect. She also does it with a minimum of "patter" - the between-songs chat that most artists use to enlighten us about the music, the performer, or both. That's unusual in cabaret, but Ms. West is content to let the music and her often-innovative approach to it speak for themselves. For her, the combination works beautifully. She connects quickly with the audience and maintains that bond right up to the end.

The combination of Ms. West and her fellow performers, The George Mesterhazy Trio, also works beautifully. I've praised Mesterhazy's impressive pianism and smart, witty arrangements before. It would seem that I'm doing it again now. His arrangement of ur-Hippie eden ahbez's "Nature Boy", for example, features seductive harmonies and a percussion line inspired by a visit to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul ("not Constantinople") while his high-energy version of "All the Cats Join In" - which Benny Goodman's band recorded for a Disney animated short in 1946 - includes one of his signature in-jokes. In this case, it's the bass line from another Goodman hit, Chu Berry's "Christopher Columbus". There was undoubtedly more of that sort of thing during the evening, but I'm not hip to the jive enough to pick up all of it.

Filling out the trio this time around are Cliff Schmidt on bass and Tony Reedus on drums. They're both solid performers and are clearly having the time of their lives playing off of each other and Ms. West who is, as always, careful to give members of the band plenty of opportunities to shine. Mr. Schmidt's action-packed solos drew applause throughout the evening, and Mr. Reedus demonstrated an impressive dynamic range, from the exotic caresses of "Nature Boy" to the slam-bang tang of "All the Cats Join In".

So, there we are. I managed to tell you what a great show Paula West is doing this week at Savor and I hardly plagiarized myself at all. Her show runs through Saturday, May 17th, and you can order tickets by calling Savor at 314-531-0220 or by surfing over to licketytix.com. I'd advise doing that sooner rather than later. The 65-seat Flim-Flam Room was nearly full when we attended on Wednesday; it's a safe bet that Friday and Saturday tickets will go quickly.

Should you miss her, however, despair not. Her three CDs are available at amazon.com , among other places, and you can keep up with future appearances at her web site, paulawestonline.com . And in any case, given the warm welcome the Midwest has accorded the West, I expect we'll be seeing her here again.

Stage Left Podcast, 18 October 2007

Reviewed: Marilyn Maye's appeatance at The Cabaret at Savor in St. Louis October 17 - 21, 2007. You can hear a podcast version of it here. A shorter version was broadcast on KDHX-FM in St. Louis.

Click To Play

Here's the text of the review:

Following one of Marilyn Maye's dozens of appearances on The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson turned to the audience and said "that, young singers, is the way it's done." As she's demonstrating this week at Savor, that's still the way it's done. And it's not just young singers who might want to take notes

rom the moment she hit the stage - with an upbeat medley of "The Song is You" and "I Hear Music" - until she exited ninety minutes later with an exuberant reading of Jerry Herman's "It's Today", Ms. Maye had the opening night crowd in the palm of her hand. Setting up immediate and honest communication with the audience is an essential skill for the cabaret performer. It's a skill she has in abundance, as her long and successful career clearly indicates. Maye's boundless energy and obvious delight in her material, in combination with her cheerful, off-the-cuff repartee, established an immediate bond with those of us on the other side of the spotlight.

How solid is that bond? Well, let's put it this way: how many cabaret singers could put Kander and Ebb's "Cabaret" right in the middle of the act and not have it come across and obvious and hackneyed? Ms. Maye did it and we all loved it. Case closed.

As you might gather from what I've just said, Marilyn Maye's musical tastes would appear to run mainly to American songbook standards. Her current show, for example, features fine performances of classics such as Rogers and Hart's "Mountain Greenery" (in a version so jazzed up that I failed to recognize the verse at first), "Get Happy", and "Come Rain or Come Shine". There's also a solid medley of tunes by the man who gave Ms. Maye her big national break, the late, great Steve Allen, including "When I'm in Love, "I Love You Today" and, of course, "This Could be the Start of Something Big". The latter is probably the best known of the literally thousands of songs produced by the multi-talented musician, actor and comic.

Ms. Maye is also a great admirer of the late Ray Charles, however, so for the last ten minutes (or thereabouts) of the evening she breaks away from cabaret standards to deliver an inspired eight-song set of the late R&B singer's hits, including "Born to Lose", "Cryin' Time", "You Don't Know Me" and a version of "Hallelujah I Love Her So" with new lyrics that turns the song into an unabashed valentine to Charles. The fact that her Maye Sings Ray CD was on sale afterwards, while hardly coincidental, was welcome. I bought a copy, anyway.

Accompanying Ms. Maye and, in fact, acting as equal partners in the act are Billy Stritch and His Trio - Stritch on piano and vocals with Andy Davis on bass and Jim Ekloff on drums. Her lively interaction with all three is great fun to watch. Stritch and company get to shine in a set of their own as well - a tribute to the late Mel Torme featuring a swinging run through Porter's "Just One of Those Things" combined with the film classic"Green Dolphin Street".

The bottom line is that Marilyn Maye puts on one hell of an entertaining show. Her approach to cabaret is very much in the old school, "knock ‘em dead" style with a strong East coast jazz feel - markedly different from the more intimately personal style favored by many younger masters of the art. It serves as a reminder that there's plenty of room under the cabaret tent for a variety of approaches. The only sine qua non is playing straight with the audience - and that Marilyn Maye certainly does.

The demand for tickets has been big and The Flim Flam Room at Savor is small, so you'd be well advised to reserve seats in advance by calling 314-531-0220 or on line at licketytix.com . Marilyn Maye will be knocking ‘em dead through Sunday, October 21st [2007] at Savor, 4356 Lindell in the Central West End.

Beautiful Dreamer

[This is my review of Jennifer Sheehan's appearance at The Cabaret at Savor for KDHX-FM in St. Louis]

The first time I saw Jennifer Sheehan on stage was almost exactly five years ago, when the then-teenager performed a short set at the end of an appearance by her mentor, legendary cabaret artist Andrea Marcovicci. At the time I commented publicly on her "winning renditions" of "The Way You Look Tonight" and "I Have Dreamed" and wondered privately whether or not I wasn't seeing a future cabaret star in the making.

Having seen her new solo show, This is What I Dreamed, at Savor this weekend [September 27 – 30, 2007] I need wonder no longer. Ms. Sheehan is clearly on track to be a major new player in the world of musical theatre in general and cabaret in particular. All the elements of a first-class cabaret act are there: an honest, unpretentious stage presence (and the resulting quick communication with the audience), a flexible, Julliard-trained voice, a smart choice of repertoire and a musical director – James Followell – who knows how to support and enhance a singer’s performance. It’s easy to see why she has already won awards from the Mabel Mercer Foundation and Glenn Miller Festival and is well on her way to making a name for herself in New York. The kid’s got talent, and she’s going to go far.

The first two-thirds of the Savor show was mostly a collection of favorites from the American Songbook, including a two numbers from Ms. Sheehan’s first theatrical love, West Side Story, and quick medley of Cole Porter songs that she first sang publicly at the age of nine when, by her own admission, she had no idea what lyrics like “I get no kick from Champagne” might actually mean. There was also a heartfelt performance of the Irving Kahal/Sammy Fain World War II classic “I’ll Be Seeing You”. Ms. Sheehan introduced the song by recalling her performance of it for Alzheimer’s patients, thereby giving the lyrics a contemporary poignancy and reminding us that it’s not just shooting wars that can cause us to lose loved ones.

It was, in short, a fairly conventional mix of material, but even here there were surprises, such as Sondheim’s rarely heard “I Remember Sky” (from the 1966 TV special Evening Primrose, where it was originally sung by Charmain Carr) and a very funny Leo Robin/Richard Whiting number -"I Wanna Go Places and Do Things" (from the 1929 film Close Harmony).

More surprises awaited us. Ms. Sheehan spent the last third of the program on songs by contemporary musical theatre composers, including Jason Robert Brown, John Bucchino, and Susan Werner. Memorable moments from this segment included Brown’s “Climbing Uphill” (a song from The Last Five Years about an audition from hell that drew laughs of recognition from the theatre folk in the audience - including yours truly), Werner’s “I Can’t Be New” (from her breakout 2004 album of the same name) and Bucchino’s lovely “Temporary”. This last one deals beautifully with the transitory nature of life and reminds us that the phrase “this too shall pass” applies to both the bitter and the sweet.

Ms. Sheehan’s performances clearly demonstrated that she can be comic, lyrical or sentimental as needed and with convincing sincerity and musical virtuosity. There were, perhaps, a few minor aspects of the show that could use a bit of tweaking. It’s probably not, for example, necessary to explain what “the American Songbook” means to most cabaret audiences and the (very) occasional stock theatrical gesture struck a false note, but these are the kinds of things that fall under the heading of what’s called “polishing” in the theatre – minor alterations to an already solid performance. Their relative unimportance is the reason for relegating them to this penultimate paragraph.

This is What I Dreamed will apparently be Jennifer Sheehan’s last St. Louis appearance for a while. By the time you read this, she’ll already be back in New York preparing for upcoming appearances at The Radio City Music Hall 75th Anniversary Christmas Spectacular and The Mabel Mercer Foundation's 2007 New York Cabaret Convention. Our loss is The Big Apple’s gain. For more information, visit her web site, jennifersheehan.com . For more information on upcoming shows in Jim Dolan’s Cabaret at Savor series (still to come: Marilyn Maye and Anne Kerry Ford), see cabaretatsavor.com .