Alix Cohen - Page 7

Frances Albert (Frank) Sinatra (1915-1998) was arguably one of the most important vocalists of 20th century. The Hoboken, New Jersey native began as a boy singer with big band leaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, became a heartthrob to bobbysoxers, a headliner in nightclubs during their heyday, and was one of the best selling recording artists of all time. Sinatra's illusively relaxed phrasing was as unique as the quality of swing he made popular. This centennial year of his birth will be filled with tributes. 'You beat the rush,' Producer/Writer/Host Scott Siegel quipped from a podium last night during the variety tribute show The Sinatra Century at 54 Below.

"Mad About the Boy?!" The rabble-rousing thespian with get down dance moves, and elastic, back-trilled voice is going to sing Noel Coward? At 54 Below? Mea Culpa. Britain's Barb Jungr performs one of the most truthful renditions of the song perhaps any Coward purist has heard. Sure, it's prefaced by a sharp comic turn on aging, but the moment Jungr begins to confess, she's proud, eager, and though gimlet-eyed, ready to risk it all. " . . . Misery and joy, misery and joy, misery and joy," she repeats weighing probabilities in one hand, then the other. A muted, wah-wah scat sustains focus in tandem with Tracy Stark's age inappropriate, sashaying piano.

Tony Award nominee and Emmy Award-winning actress Liz Callaway's latest offering at 54 Below, Celebrate!, will send you into the cold night feeling better about everything. Callaway celebrates the holidays, family, and personal milestones with Disney-like buoyancy that never becomes cloying. Hallmarks of natural stage authority, vibrant vocal clarity and theatrical investment in lyrics can be counted on with this empathetic artist.

Janine Gilbert Carter and her estimable trio personify classical traditions. Jazz, Blues, and Gospel are handled with ease and authority. Nothing gets insistently loud, experimentally unmelodic, or lyrically updated. Musicians take solos in turn. Embellishment is deft, textural, and, in my opinion, thankfully within the mood parameters of each song. There's appeal in familiarity when backed by solid talent. This is head-bobbing, shoulder-swaying entertainment.

Five years ago, Michael Feinstein approached ubiquitous producer Scott Siegel about 'coming up with a club act' for Feinstein's at the Loews Regency. The title 11 O'Clock Numbers at 11 O'Clock was Siegel's eureka moment. 'Broadway shows used to start at 8:30,' Siegel reminded us. 'The 11 o'clock number was meant to shake an audience awake in time to enjoy the end of a show.' Every Thursday night until its host venue sadly shuttered in January 2013, the series packed'm in for soaring voices and musical bonhomie. Since then, this particular collaboration of vocalists--Scott Coulter, Christina Bianco, and Carole J. Bufford--have twice appeared in the Broadway at Birdland series, but now the 11 O'Clock numbers are featured at 7 O'Clock. Not only does the concept hold up, but also its artists having matured, may even be better.

Harry Lillis 'Bing' Crosby, Jr., who died in 1977 at age 74, was one of the most popular American singers and actors of the first half of the 20th-century, garnering millions of fans with recordings, radio, film, and live performance. The artist used his microphone as a route to intimacy, rather than volume, and was known for phrasing shaped to lyrical intention. Crosby's seemingly casual, bass/baritone style has often been imitated but never duplicated. On the same night that PBS was premiering a new American Masters documentary on the iconic singer, Bing Crosby Rediscovered, the venerable Urban Stages opened its 6th Annual and widely varied Winter Rhythms series with A Tribute to Bing Crosby, curated, hosted, and mostly performed by Musical Director Bill Zeffiro.

Anthony Nunziata is an attractive young man with a good vocal instrument. But what once seemed warm and natural has evolved into affectation. When I first started writing about him (and his twin brother, Will) almost five years ago, the Nunziata's featured family stories and several very personal songs. Anthony used some of that same material last night in his solo show at 54 Below.

Last year at this time, Ann Hampton Callaway beamed love from the stage. This November, she's a newlywed. Though the musical life journey she shared last night at the opening of her new 54 Below show, Turning Points, contains a couple of dark numbers, on the whole it's celebratory. Callaway is incandescent. You'll feel it in your bones.

The multi-faceted musical director/arranger/accompanist/composer Alex Rybeck flexed his talent this past Sunday night, sharing songs of every ilk with an appreciatively packed 54 Below. 'Tonight is proof positive that dreams come true, just not how you imagine. I always thought you had to have a hit song to headline an evening here…' Delivered by many of his celebrated singer friends he's worked with often (including the Callaway Sisters, Liz and Ann), entertaining selections from the writer's canon included bossa nova, ballads, musical theater numbers, pop, comic turns, seasonal songs, and 'Serenade,' a haunting piece of music the author composed for his mother which seemed like portraiture: strong, proud, thoughtful, warm, light.