Review: Marilyn Maye demonstrates that it's better with a big band

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Marilyn Maye
marilynmaye.com

Share on Google+:

If you're already a fan of cabaret legend Marilyn Maye, you won't be surprised to learn that she and her long-time pianist/music director Tedd Firth rocked the house last night (March 7, 2019) at Jazz St. Louis, as part of an ongoing series of concerts co-produced with The Cabaret Project. And if you weren't a fan, you likely became one by the time the show was over.

Ms. Maye usually travels with a small combo consisting of Mr. Firth on piano, Rod Fleeman on guitar, Gerald Spaits on bass, and Todd Strait on drums. For this show, "It's Better With a Big Band," the group was supplemented by the winds and brass of the Jazz St. Louis Big Band, and the impact of that extra power made Ms. May's already strong performance that much more impressive. It was also a pleasure to hear some of our local pros strut their stuff.

From the moment she hit the stage with an upbeat "love" medley ("What the World Needs Now is Love," "Let There Be Love," and the Sarah Vaughan hit "It's Love"), Ms. Maye used her commanding performance presence and vocal virtuosity to immediately connect with the audience--a bond she unfailingly maintained right through her encore of Jerry Herman's "It's Today" over ninety minutes later. I think she might have made eye contact with every audience member at some point during the evening.

Her boundless energy, good humor, and obvious delight in her material are, in short, irresistible.

Tedd Firth and Marilyn Maye at Birdland
Photo by Kevin Alvey

These days Ms. Maye's shows appear to concentrate on elaborate and smartly assembled medleys of numbers from Broadway and the Great American Songbook, and this one was no exception. Highlights included a five-song set of numbers with lyrics by Johnny Mercer ("He knew how to put the right word on the right note," Ms. May observed), a set of four tunes from Lerner and Lowe's hit "My Fair Lady," and a collection by one of my all-time favorites, Thomas "Fats" Waller, that included a sly, seductive version of "Honeysuckle Rose."

That's not to say there weren't a few lovely ballads along the way as well. I was especially taken with "Fifty Percent," from the musical "Ballroom," with its beautiful take on love late in life, and with the medley that combined the Frank Sinatra hit "Here's That Rainy Day" (Johnny Carson's favorite song, according to Ms. Maye) with Harold Arlen's classic "Stormy Weather." That one segued into a dynamite rendition of Arlen's "Come Rain or Come Shine" with a killer piano solo from Mr. Firth.

I could go on, but you get the idea. I could go on, but you get the idea. As an added bonus for the local audience, 18-year-old Caden Turner, a graduate of The Cabaret Project's Sing Center Stage program, was welcomed to the stage for a swinging, Sinatra-inspired performance of "Come Fly With Me."

The term "living legend" can be overused, but Ms. Maye (who turns 91 in April) surely deserves the appellation. Following one of her 76 appearances on The Tonight Show (the all-time record for a singer), Johnny Carson turned to the audience and said "that, young singers, is the way it's done." As she proved once again with this latest visit to St. Louis, that's still the way it's done.

Astonishingly, Marilyn May took a 5 am flight the following day to San Francisco for a two-night gig at the Nikko Hotel, after which she's off to The Purple Room in Palm Springs. You can keep up with her busy schedule at her web site.

Review: Sister act

L-R: Liz Callaway and Ann Hampton Callaway

Share on Google+:

Musical sisters Liz Callaway and Ann Hampton Callaway are no strangers to St. Louis stages. Both have performed here many times in the past and both have been part of the teaching staff at the St. Louis Cabaret Conference.

Their appearance here at on Wednesday and Thursday, September 26 and 27, though, marked the first time their duo act Sibling Revelry has been seen here in almost two decades and the show's first performance at the recently renovated Jazz Bistro. They have performed the show around the country since around 1995, which means they have now fine-tuned it into a precision entertainment machine.

The evening opened with an exuberant duet of Jerry Herman's "It's Today" (from "Mame") that showcased the sisters' precision close harmony, and it then moved into a solo set in which Ann demonstrated both her vocal and interpretive skill. Her version of "Rhythm in My Nursery Rhymes" (a hit for "Fats" Waller, among others), with its scatting and vocal imitations of jazz combo instruments, was a reminder of why she's so well regarded on the jazz scene, but she also captured perfectly the wry, world weariness of Nancy Ford and Gretchen Cryer's "Old Friend" (from "I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it On the Road").

A delightful duet of "Friendship" (from "DuBarry Was a Lady") gave them a chance to joke about the rivalry in their revelry, and then Liz took the solo spot with moving performances of Steven Schwartz's "Meadowlark" (which I still can't hear without getting teary-eyed) and Frank Loesser's ecstatic "My Heart is So Full of You" (from "Most Happy Fella"). That set demonstrated why Liz has been so much in demand in the theatre and film world.

For me, though, the best thing about the evening was seeing them soar through complex arrangements of Broadway and Great American Songbook standards in flawless tight harmony. They played off each other with the ease of long acquaintance.

Alex Rybeck

They were, in short, having a great time and they made sure the audience was part of the fun. That was perhaps most apparent in their "Huge Medley" of all the songs their friends suggested they should do when they first started putting "Sibling Revelry" together over two decades ago. It's a high-speed trip through (at least) a dozen tunes from the big band hit "Sentimental Journey" to Sondheim's "Every Day a Little Death" (from "A Little Night Music").

Through it all, the reliably brilliant Alex Rybeck (a strong performer in his own right) backed them up on the piano. Mr. Rybeck's skill at the keyboard is always impressive, but his solid performance Wednesday night was made more so by the realization that he had been called in on 24-hours notice and had, in fact, flown in from New York City on a 5 am flight the day of the concert. That's Purple Heart territory.

By the time you read this, the Callaway sisters will have concluded their St. Louis stay, but the season continues at Jazz St. Louis. "Sibling Revelry" was the first show in the new Jazz St. Louis Cabaret Series, co-produced with The Cabaret Project St. Louis. Check out both organizations' respective web sites for information on upcoming events.

Review: Lea DeLaria's David Bowie show heats up a cold night

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Lea DeLaria

Share on Google+:

It was as cold as Paul Ryan's heart outside, but over at Jazz St. Louis it was positively smokin' as Lea DeLaria brought her David Bowie show (based on her 2015 CD House of David) to the stage. With a killer five-piece band and a special guest appearance by Manhattan Transfer founder Janis Siegel, this was a show guaranteed to nuke any holiday blues.

And without a single Christmas song!

Although she's probably best known for her role as Carrie "Big Boo" Black on the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, Ms. DeLaria has had an impressive career in stand-up comedy, theatre, and music for many years now. With five jazz albums to her credit, she's a powerful vocalist with a great ear and an unfailingly accurate feel for what makes both musical and theatrical sense.

Her show for Jazz St. Louis got off to a rousing start with a high-energy version of David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging" (from Bowie's 1979 Lodger album) and just went from strength to strength after that. I've never been a huge Bowie fan myself, but I came away from this show impressed with how much room his relatively simple songs leave for improvisation.

A case in point was DeLaria and company's version of the 1969 hit "Space Oddity." About half way through the original there's a short instrumental break that takes up maybe eight bars before the vocal picks up again. Wednesday night, that little break was turned into an elaborate, free-wheeling solo by keyboardist Helen Sung that helped turn Bowie's five-minute song into something of an epic.

Something very similar happened in their take on Bowie's cinematically dystopian "Life on Mars?," in which the hallucinatory lyrics of civilization in decline were paired with high-flying vocals and flashy instrumental solos. That would have been worth the price of admission all by itself.

David Bowie

But wait, as they say on TV, there's more! Jazz veteran Janis Siegel came onstage about half way through for a lyrical "Cherry Tree" by Grammy-winning composer, arranger, and pianist Alan Broadbent, followed by a kick-ass duet version of Harold Arlen's "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead" aimed at That Guy in the Oval Office. Siegel and DeLaria expertly traded licks with each other and with guitarist and music director Sheryl Bailey in a way that overflowed with good humor and showed off their rapport with both each other and the band.

There were other great moments in the evening as well, including solid solo work from Roxy Coss on sax and Sylvia Cuenca on drums. And I really loved that insistent bass solo by Endea Owens that opened "Let's Dance."

The bottom line is that this is an entertaining and inventive night with a lot of terrific singing and playing. Ms. DeLaria herself is engaging and funny as hell as long as you're not put off by the f-bomb being dropped liberally. But then, if you are, you probably wouldn't be considering this show anyway.

LeaDelaria's Bowie tribute played at Jazz St. Louis's Ferring Bistro on Washington in Grand Center Wednesday and Thursday, December 27 and 18, 2017. It was a co-presentation with The Cabaret Project STL (where, to be fair, I'm a board member).