OK, follow me, if you will, on a “Six Degrees of Separation” cabaret circular journey.  I’m starting this column on a laptop at a club that feels like a fan club, again this Monday, because it’s Iridium Jazz Club, where The Les Paul Trio continues to honor the life and art of the late guitar icon.  It’s a continuing jazz tradition there, but I’m supposed to be writing about Cabaret. So, what else is going on “In the Still of the Night” in NYC where “It’s De-Lovely” because “Anything Goes” in cabaret “All Through the Night?”  I guess you might be getting the idea from these song titles,

that  I’m thinking that maybe I should begin with the great songwriter Cole Porter, a staple in any cabaret diet, since this week is his birthday.  So, maybe we should just “Begin the Beguine” and end  with him for our six degrees, and earn our musical Masters Degree in Segues.

FIRST DEGREE:  Wednesday, June 9, the birthday of Cole Porter (1891-1964), happens to be the procrastinator’s last chance in NYC this season to catch the one-woman musical focusing on Mrs. Porter, played by singer Stevie Holland. A potent potpourri of popular Porter picks is sung. It’s at The Triad on West 72 Street.

SECOND DEGREE: Also at The Triad, there’s a show on June 19, with baritone Gordon Michaels, called Black on Broadway, featuring songs from musicals such as Dreamgirls, Porgy and Bess, The Wiz and the revue Ain’t Misbehavin’…

THIRD DEGREE:  (Yes, I’m giving you the third degree): Do you know whose various concert series have featured songs from all those shows just listed, as well as many Cole Porter songs?  It’s Scott Siegel and his original series that started it all, Broadway by the Year, celebrating its tenth anniversary on Monday, June 14, with – instead of songs from just one Broadway year --- one

BOBBY STEGGERT (photo: Maryann Lopinto)

Broadway by the Year favorite Marc Kudisch (photo: Maryann Lopinto)

ALEXANDER GEMIGNANI and KATE BALDWIN (photo: Maryann Lopinto)

SCOTT SIEGEL, LIZ CALLAWAY, and frequent Broadway by the Year performer JEFFRY DENMAN (photo: Maryann Lopinto)

I was at the concert and I wrote the liner notes.

FOURTH DEGREE:  Also at The Town Hall, over 1,000 of us witnessed one of the cabaret/concert highlights of the season, on June 4.   It was a show by sisters Liz Callaway & Ann Hampton Callaway called Boom! – as in “Baby Boomers,” where the two shared memories of their growing-up days and their musical favorites from the late 1960s and early 1970s, singing many of them.  First seen at The Iridium in a shorter version, the now two-act full concert (just booked for one night and they packed the place) was moving, warm, peppered with humor, genuinely nostalgic and affectionate  and gorgeously sung.  In short, Boom! was a smash, and started with a bang and a blast of memories– music from The Beatles.  Creative, but respectful trio arrangements done in collaboration with musical director/pianist  Alex Rybeck, often let the old “youth market” favorites grow up and deepen, so they sounded like they were coming from a more grown-up, lived-in perspective.  Others were just for fun.  From Carole King to Stevie Wonder, these two queens of cabaret were a wonder and the audience was responsive and rapturous.  Each a sensational solo performer, when their voices combine in harmony, the sound and energy make for something especially wonderful and often breathtaking.  Using their acting skills to make the more serious songs into drama - Ann’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Liz’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane,” the duet of “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” – they pulled the audience along for much more than a simple, feel-good ride down Memory Lane.  A few “guilty pleasure” faves from the period were pulled out, and pulled the audience in and back, too.  It’s a no-brainer to bring the show back to New York.  Meanwhile, it’s booked at Westhampton (NY) PAC on August 28 and scattered dates in various dates between then and April (so far).  Interesting fact: Ann is the only writer to be given permission to “collaborate” with Cole Porter on a song where lyrics to an existing Porter wordless melody were added.

FIFTH DEGREE:  Speaking of songs that came our way in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, I had a treat finding another concert of them – not the pop hits but from the musical theatre genre – the very next day, June 5.  It was at a spot off the beaten cabaret path: up at 105 Street and Fifth Avenue at The Museum of the City of New York.  Tied in with their exhibition focused on the years of the John V. Lindsay administration, the concert looked at songs that were on Broadway during that arts-supporting NYC Mayor’s time in office.  There was a bit of a reverse déjà vu factor, as some of the songs from those years are back on Broadway now, with revivals of Hair, A Little Night Music and Chicago - they confessed that a flub in looking at the relevant span of years got two songs from that post-Lindsay show on the set list, but to quote a song from Skyscraper also included: “Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong” (“…at least once!”).  Performers were Michael McElroy (gifted with the chops to deliver the goods on “All Good Gifts” from Godspell), Brigid Brady and two stars who go back and forth between cabaret and theatre, Jason Graae and Penny Fuller. At the piano was Laurence Yurman, who, to quote Irving Berlin, “knows a fine way to treat a Steinway.”  And speaking of the Styne way, composer Jule Styne’s melodies were also highlights, with Brigid scoring with “My Own Morning” (recently presented by the lady who introduced it, Leslie Uggams, at the MAC Awards and her own shows at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Café Carlyle). Jason and Penny were both especially delightful on their duet of a song from 1968’s Jule Styne/E.Y. "Yip" Harburg score, Darling of the Day, called “Panache,” something they both have in spades with Styne, Sondheim or Strouse.  Jason delightfully brought a slice of ham and wham-bam! to stop the show with “Broadway Baby,” and Penny was a pleasure with any cabaret fan’s theme song, the title tune from Cabaret (she talked about being the standby in the original production).  Happily, this lively concert at the museum didn’t make the songs feel like “museum pieces.”

SIXTH DEGREE:  Penny and Jason are among the many theatre/cabaret stars who have performed in recent times at The Metropolitan Room, as have people like Liz Callaway who began 2010 ringing in the new year by doing their New Year’s Eve show.  On June 11, the spotlight will be on the people who are there the most often: the talented staff doing their own group show.  Having seen most of them do their own cabaret shows, perform in theatre, or appear in their piano bar open mics or earlier Staff Spectaculars, I can say they have some very, very impressive talent and I’m really looking forward to another edition.  Ok, I know I promised to get back to Cole Porter for the six degrees of separation return to the start.  If only Jeff Harnar were bringing back the Porter show he did there.  How about a field trip with Kello O'Hara and Jason Danieley who are doing a Cole Porter concert with the Boston Pops on June 11?  No, that conflicts with that staff show I just mentioned. If only the monthly Sheet Music Society event on Saturday afternoon, at 322 West 48 Street, were a Cole Porter salute instead of a spotlight on rare songs by The Gershwins (hey, that sounds pretty good, too, come to think of it).  If only there were an excellent Cole Porter show being presented by Karen Oberlin, but she’s doing a superb salute to another great songwriter of Broadway and film scores, Frank Loesser, at The Algonquin through June 19 (highly recommended and highly entertaining and high class, but not Porter.  Hmmmm….) .  How about mentioning the Cole Porter songs on the new CD by Jane Krakowski? After all, it was recorded live at a cabaret room, Feinstein’s at Loews Regency.  There’s a Cole Porter classic, courtesy of Liza Minnelli and Billy Stritch on the soundtrack of Sex and the City 2. Hey, wait a minute, didn’t I start by mentioning Cole Porter’s birthday of June 9?  I began by mentioning Les Paul.  And June 9 happened to have been the day he was born, too!   How about that!  So, back to Iridium Jazz Club, I guess.  That’s where you’ll often find raconteur Scott Barbarino, who is busy putting together a July jazz vocalist series with some of my favorites who have one foot in jazz and one foot in cabaret, and who works a schedule named in a Cole Porter song: “Night and Day” --- a number often heard in Terese Genecco’s shows there on the last Tuesday of each month, if not Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”  

CATCH-UP ON CABARET is made possible via the generosity of Jamie deRoy and friends