Album Review: Ari Axelrod Lives & Breathes & Sings At Birdland on ARI AXELROD LIVE AT BIRDLAND

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby's CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week's album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from one of the great doyens of our NYC Cabaret community. Ari Axelrod had a birthday earlier this month, one that makes him all of (((Redacted Number That's Under 30))) but it seems that he's been on our night club stages for longer than he's been alive... and speaking of alive, Ari's debut album, Ari Axelrod LIVE AT BIRDLAND, has hit the streams, and the aftershow merch tables, and is a must-have for Broadway/American Songbook lovers young and not-so-young. As a performer, AA is all heart, and he lays that heart out for all to see, each time he takes the stage. As a teacher of the art of club singing, he has mentored, with love, many a talent that have taken his lessons and made wonderful shows of their own. ARI'S ARIAS is the live show from which this recording was made, so the very nature of this album is, indeed, about BEING ALIVE - cut #23 and his finale number. Ari performs Sondheim's expressive opening words in a half-sung/half-spoken meaningful and deeply felt way, building the number perfectly to its thunderous final measures, raising the roof and the live audience's heart rates, to be sure. At this point in his performance, if you have taken the trip with Ari, both the listener and the artist feel exhausted, but it is the exhaustion of catharsis - a kind of emptying out of emotion, leading to the "I can see clearly now" moment of the show's encore, OVER THE RAINBOW.

But that is all our musical cart before the milkman, isn't it, my lambs? And speaking of IF I WERE A RICH MAN, we feel certain that, after listening to AA's take on Tevye's comparison between his station in life and the life he imagines for himself and his family, the future will render up this bucket list role for the young man, probably more than once, so lovely and so in character was his performance. While the aforementioned numbers are all definite highlights on an album full of highlights, nine of the most wonderful things about LIVE AT BIRDLAND are the cuts where AA is just talking: no vocals, just Ari stopping to relate to his audience on the night of the performance, as well as us, listening in the present day. These spoken interludes convey the spine of the story he is telling, from start to finish, and, so, this album is almost the entire journey one would take if one were sitting with others in the club, absorbing the Axelrod magic. There have, indeed, been many live-in performance music albums down through history, and the "stars" with star names and star power that have put out those albums have created something remarkable, every time. Here is a young man with that same kind of charisma, with a storyteller's flair, and a voice that harkens to legends of the past that carried such emotion in their throats that they were said to have a teardrop in their voice (Al Jolson was, thus, described).

Through all of this praise for this gem of an album that is truly a treasure chest of gems, Ari's piece de resistance has to be cut #14, BRAIN SURGERY: MY STORY IN SONG. In brief, Axelrod suffered a congenital brain malformation that could have killed him, and that necessitated a super-delicate brain surgery that could have killed him, and, now, he is fully recovered, sans migraines, sans vertigo, and with a view of the beauty of life that many people rarely achieve without a trip to the brink. So adept at telling the story of how his life was saved through brain surgery, Ari sings this medley of songs interwoven with spoken word in such a life-affirming way that the audience floats with him above the harrowing drama of it all, until we are deposited safely on the other side, like Ari himself, intact and ready for more life - "Holding to the ground as the ground keeps shifting," one of his songs says. This cobbled-together medley was arranged with Alex Rybeck and weaves Axelrod's story perfectly from 3 diverse sources: THE CURE from THE LION by Benjamin Scheuer, HOLDING TO THE GROUND from FALSETTOS by William Finn, and HOW GLORY GOES from FLOYD COLLINS by Adam Guettel. Rybeck's work with AA in creating the story flow from one song to the next to the next and back again, sometimes only stopping to pick up a single line from one of the 3, before moving to a completely different song, is miraculous. Always though, there are Ari's gentle, metaphysical, hands taking care of us all, along the way, letting us know these were tough times but we're all OK now.

Finally, a word must be said about AA's inclusion of Jason Robert Brown's STARS AND THE MOON. We have to confess that, beautiful though this song is, we have heard it a lot from a great number of female-identifying performers... But when a male-identifying performer chooses to sing this song about the men in his life, a layer is added that speaks to all about the commonality between genders and identities, for these stones along the path of life are for everyone.

In all, my angels, Ari Axelrod LIVE AT BIRDLAND is one of the best LIVE albums this rainbow writer has heard... maybe ever. Ari sings and talks and laughs and presents himself with all the directness, vulnerability, and panache of a classic storyteller, and his music makes us wish for BIG things in his future because, for now, what we can offer is...

5 Out Of 5 Rainbows - Put this one in your collection/stream today: HERE

You Can See And Hear Everything About Ari Axelrod On His Webbysite: HERE

Read My Boss, Stephen Mosher's Review Of Ari's Arias (The Live Show Recorded For This Album): HERE

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