The Ravishing Rebecca Luker

Wow, have we been lucky to have a number of stunning new CDs debut in recent weeks.  And Rebecca Luker’s new CD Greenwich Time is right there at the front of the pack.

For the CD, Luker chooses generally-obscure songs with a theatrical pedigree — many from shows that were never produced.  (DC audiences saw Luker perform many of these numbers in her Kennedy Center show earlier this year.)  It says a lot when In a Very Unusual Way is the best-known song on a CD.  However Luker’s evangelical spirit for the material gives the recording a special energy.

There are many terrific moments on the CD.  For me the best is a Jeff Blumenkrantz song Lovely Lies, a frank confession by a Southern daughter to her mother.  He Never Did That Before is a comic tour de force.  And having seen Luker as the replacement in Nine, it is wonderful to have her performance of In a Very Unusual Way saved for history.

Luker is as perfect a theatrical soprano as one could ask for.  Her vocal production is an example for all of us lesser singers.  But she is a story-teller at heart, and she never sacrifices communicative directness for vocal effect.  When I saw her concert, I felt that she established such strong characters for each song, that the effect was was slightly disjointed; however this recording feels much more integrated.  And Thalken’s arrangements suit Luker and her communicative approach perfectly.

• On My Way To You
• Ohio, 1904
• Billions Of Beautiful Boys
• Killing Time
• Greenwich Time
• Remember
• Unusual Way
• Lovely Lies
• He Never Did That Before
• Out Of Love
• Whata The Living Do
• Birthday Horoscope For B.R.
• Have Had
• Summer With You 

Justin Ritchie at Sitar Arts Center

Justin Ritchie in

On My Way Here

Musical director, Rick Jensen / Directed by Lina Koutrakos

A look at the events and journeys that make up life – good, bad or somewhere in between – told through the songs of Elton John, Jimmy Van Husen and Johnny Burke, Dolly Parton, Noel Coward and more. 

Friday November 13th and Saturday November 14th @ 8pm

Sitar Arts Center – 1700 Kalorama Road, NW – Washington, DC 202.797.2145

Tickets and more information available at www.onmywayhere.eventbrite.com

Tickets $15.00

Singing with Bob Smith

That’s a picture of me on Halloween, scaring the fellow revelers by singing You Fascinate Me So.

OK, I’ve been meaning to write forever about discovering how terrific it is to sing with Bob Smith.  Ron and I originally, FINALLY, went to hear him for the first time in September at the prodding of the ever-prescient Kathy Reilly who had been raving about his Monday nights at the Madison Hotel.  

Bob Smith is a really terrific keyboardist in a great swingy, jazzy style and he runs a very well-organized, totally charming, open mic experience.  He is extremely fluid in playing the American Songbook standards in whatever key and style the singer requests.  And, he’s also terrific at reading those few songs he doesn’t already know.  And he draws an extremely pleasant crowd of folks who really seem to love music.

Not only that, but the Bob Smith Experience also features the amazing work of sideman Robert Vetter, who fills in on acoustic guitar, trumpet, melodica, and vocals.  Completing team Bob Smith is his son, Ed Smith, who is co-producer, sound engineer extraordinaire as well as a terrific vocalist in his own right.

Of course, as so often happens when Ron and I discover something like this, the Madison gig came to an end (the way that these things do), just as we were starting to go.  (And we did our best not to take it personally.)  But Bob Smith at this point can be seen at the Morrison House in Alexandria on Tuesdays and Saturdays and at the Serbian Crown on Friday nights.

And next Tuesday night, he’s doing something special at his Morrison House engagement:

At the Morrison House Grille next Tuesday, 10 November. Mr. Robert Hannigan, General Manager of the Morrison House, Mr. William Smith, Manager of the Grille, and I will be hosting the first-ever “Morrison House Grille Salute to Veterans” event, and your participation is both needed and requested!

We are asking all of you attendees to dress patriotically, and our veterans to wear something that will identify their particular branch of service. Your miniature medals, a veteran’s organization cap (American Legion, VFW, AMVETS, etc), and/or a baseball cap with your branch of service would be perfect. If you can still fit into your old uniform, that would be even better. Needless to say, you won’t see me wearing my Class “A’s” due to the slight distribution in my weight since 2001. LOL!!

I will be passing out 4″ X 6″ American Flags throughout the evening. I will have printed song sheets with the lyrics of the 5 branches of service songs to be sung in reverse order (Coast Guard, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army). There will be a George M. Cohan medley sing-along and a rousing “God Bless America” at sometime during the evening. If you have a favorite military song please let me know and we will try and obtain the lyrics for everyone (maybe “God Bless the USA,” “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” etc.)

The proceeds from the “tip jar” that stands atop the piano will go to the “Wounded Warriors Project,” an advocacy organization that assists returning service personnel who suffer from a variety of disastrous physical and mental maladies, and their families. You may visit WWW.WOUNDEDWARRIORSPROJECT.ORG to gain more insight into this very vital program. William Smith has also informed me that a portion of the proceeds from the food and beverage sales on Tuesday evening will also be donated to this organization.

I am also going to invite the commander, his officers, and the members of Alexandria Post 24 of the American Legion to join with us on Tuesday. I am a former vice commander of this elite group of veterans and I welcome their participation.

Please plan to be with us at our regular time of 8:00-11:00 PM on Tuesday, 10 November, for this first-ever “Morrison House Grille Salute to Veterans.” Rob, William, and I are very excited about this event and we hope you share our enthusiasm and willingness to participate! See you next Tuesday evening!

To learn more about Bob Smith, here’s a link to his Web site.

Michael Buble sets new standards…

The NYTimes on Love, Linda

The NYTimes reviews Stevie Holland’s bio-play about Mrs. Cole Porter: “Ms. Holland takes the nightclub stage of the Triad Theater as Linda Lee Porter, the dazzling divorced socialite from Kentucky who wed Porter, eight years her junior, in 1919 when both were expatriates in Paris. Despite her husband’s homosexuality — Ms. Holland has Linda saying she “accepted his romantic appetite for men because I had his love” — the couple stayed married for 35 years, until Linda’s death from emphysema in 1954.”

New Alan Cumming CD

So often when people ask me to define “cabaret” I tell them that it’s performance in a cabaret space and that anything that works for that sort of intimate space is “cabaret.”  Others I know define it as “personal theater.”

However, you define it, Alan Cumming’s CD, I Bought a Blue Car Today, is a model of what next generation cabaret could look like.  Cumming, best known for his Tony-winning turn as the Emcee in Cabaret, combines a punk rock sensibility tempered by an English music hall tradition filtered through work in the musical theater.  The results are very personal and eclectic covering a variety of  moods and emotions from the touching to the emotionally raw to the truly wacky.

He covers a range of material: Dolly Parton’s Here You Come Again, Falsetto’s What More Can I Say, and Cabaret’s Mein Herr to name but three.  In fact, the final cut of the CD, Beautiful is the best for summing up the multi-dimensional aspect of the CD.  It is a tender love song laced with the aggressive patios of the street.  However, in the album notes we learn that it was written by a septuagenerian as a birthday tribute for his wife.

  1. Shine

  2. I Dance And Dance And Smile And Smile

  3. That’s Life

  4. Wig In A Box/Wicked Little Town

  5. Don’t Tell Me

  6. Here You Come Again/My Interpretation

  7. Next To Me

  8. Thinking Of You

  9. Unexpressed

10. Where I Want To Be

11. What More Can I Say

12. Mein Herr

13. All I know

14. Beautiful

Stephen Holden on Daryl Glenn and Jo Lynn Burks

The NYTimes on the Nashville-parody show at the Metropolitan Room: “A satire of a satire made with love: if that description of the revue “Daryl Glenn and Jo Lynn Burks Play and Sing Robert Altman’s ‘Nashville’ ” sounds self-contradictory (how many satires emanate from love?), it evokes the heartfelt nostalgia of a popular little show that has been playing at the Metropolitan Room on the first Sunday each month.”

Adding Machine at Studio

I saw The Adding Machine at Studio Theater over the weekend.

The material itself is difficult.  The classic Elmer Rice play is enhanced by a fascinating score that makes The Light in the Piazza seem like Jerry Herman.  And the adaptation balances the nihilistic worldview and agitprop of the original.

That said, the production was one of the most seamless pieces of theater I’ve seen in a long time — especially lucky for material that could be absolutely deathly in the wrong hands.  The design and staging were visually stunning in a totally unpromising environment.  And the cast did a great job of making the material approachable, especially with music that is a counting nightmare.  Lucky they had the terrific support of Alex Tang, Mary Sugar and Mark Carson in the pit.  And it was great to see friends like Joanne Schmoll, Joe Peck, and Lynn Sharp Spears having a chance to show how terrific they can be.

At least two people asked me after the show if I “liked” it.  Honestly, I don’t think it’s a piece anyone should “like.”  But it’s fascinating, thought-provoking, and very well done.

This weekend at Strathmore…

Two things that look really fun at Strathmore this weekend…

Dee Dee Bridgewater in “To Billie With Love: A Celebration of Lady Day” Presented by Strathmore Friday, November 6, 2009 at 8:00 PM Music Center at Strathmore

This incomparable singer has won a Tony Award (The Wiz), Grammy awards, and France’s Victoire de la Musique, among others. In this eagerly awaited Strathmore return engagement, Dee Dee Bridgewater incarnates the legendary Billie Holiday, recreating Lady Day’s take on such classics as “God Bless the Child,” “Lady Sings the Blues,” “All of Me,” “When You’re Smiling,” “I Can’t Get Started” and more. “Astounding!” (The New York Times)

WPAS: Michael Feinstein “The Sinatra Project” Presented by Washington Performing Arts Society Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 7:00 PM Music Center at Strathmore

Singer, pianist, archivist and all-around entertainer, Michael Feinstein can arguably lay claim to the title of the “hardest working man in show business.” The four-time Grammy nominee swings back into town with The Sinatra Project, a big-band tribute to one of the greatest performers of all time.

They can cook, too!

Home Cooked Cabaret: A Benefit for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington (GMCW)

Saturday, November 7, 2009, 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Town Danceboutique, 2009 8th St., NW (corner 8th & U St., NW), Washington, D.C.

Featuring performances by members of the GMCW and DC Cabaret Network. Featuring songs by David Friedman, Maltby & Shire, Jason Robert Brown, Stephen Sondheim, John Bucchino and others.  Tickets are $75 and include the show plus a hosted dinner at a private home afterwards. Cash bar available.  Seating is limited! For more information, visit: http://www.gmcw.org/season/0910/homecookedcabaret.php