Leslie Uggams at Reagle Music Theatre

Leslie Uggams: Uptown, Downtown

Musical Conductor/Piano, Tom Jennings; Bass, Ray Kilday; Drums, Buddy Williams; Guitar, Steve Bargonetti; Reeds, Dan Block

Performances October 16 and 17 at 2 pm at Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston, Robinson Theatre, 617 Lexington Street, Waltham, MA; Box Office 781-891-5600 or www.reaglemusictheatre.org

If you are fortunate enough to be reading this before 2 pm on Sunday, October 17, then waste no time in getting yourself over to the Robinson Theatre in Waltham. You only have one chance to sit in the audience for a performance by a truly talented, genuine Broadway star and all-around classy lady. Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston presents Leslie Uggams: Uptown, Downtown, her autobiographical stroll down a memory lane paved with familiar songs from the last six decades.

Uggams is backed by five outstanding musicians, each of whom is given a turn in the spotlight and admiringly acknowledged by the singer. Together, they bring forth the beauty and the beat of twenty great American songs by some of the finest composers in the musical canon, among them recognizable names like Gershwin, Bernstein, Styne, Herman, and Arlen. Tracing her career from Uptown to Downtown and back again, we hear blues, jazz, doo wop, and Broadway show tunes. Some of the selections were originated by others, but Uggams makes them her own in this concert setting. Credit Billie Holiday with making "Them There Eyes" famous, but Uggams' version starts off like butter and spins into a sassy, jazzy tune when she kicks up the beat.

Uggams grew up around and performed with many of the greats in Harlem and shares stories of her early days in the famed Apollo Theater. Her mentors included Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong (who she called "Pop"), Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah Washington. She took to the Apollo stage at the age of nine, repeatedly winning amateur contests before being hired to the grinding schedule of twenty-nine shows per week. In a tribute to Armstrong, Uggams grabs a white handkerchief and sings "Up a Lazy River" with a little Satchmo scat thrown in for good measure. She honors Ella with her signature song, "A Tisket, A Tasket," and concludes this Uptown segment with Washington's Johnny Mercer-penned tune "I Wanna Be Around" and "You Made Me Love You."

When the music scene began to change in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Uggams worked with doo wop groups and offers an exquisite version here of The Drifters' hit "Up On The Roof," by Carole King and Gerry Goffin. With eyes closed, crooning to the accompaniment of Steve Bargonetti's classical guitar, Uggams voice is so mellow and dreamy, she'll have you believing that she is standing on that roof at this very moment. From the roof, she takes us back Downtown for a series of Broadway songs. She relates that she saw Porgy and Bess when she was six years old and fell in love with the show and with Gershwin music. That love shines through in her rendition of "Summertime," characterized by crystal clear tones and superb control of her instrument, and she shows the range of her ability when she swings into "I Got Plenty of Nothin'."

My personal favorite on the program is "If He Walked Into My Life" from Mame and featured in Jerry's Girls by Jerry Herman, sung with the accompaniment of Musical Conductor Tom Jennings. Uggams perches on the piano and doesn't simply sing, but emotes this one, full of questions and regrets about that boy with the bugle. It doesn't get much better. She also shares two great songs from her Tony-award winning, 1967 Broadway debut show Hallelujah, Baby! and Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Hello, Young Lovers" from The King and I with drummer Buddy Williams providing the rhythm.

In the winter of 2009, Uggams starred as Lena Horne in Stormy Weather at the Pasadena Playhouse in what was touted as a pre-Broadway run. Things being what they are in the current state of affairs of trying to mount a Broadway musical, it remains to be seen when and/or if. However, Uggams pays homage to the great Horne with two of her songs to close the show. Once again, she makes the signature song of another her own with a sassy, bluesy version of "Stormy Weather," and encores with the Latin-flavored "Love," shimmying and stepping out with as much energy as she had at the top of the show.

With Leslie Uggams, what you see is what you get. Her flashing eyes and brilliant smile (I think it's one of the best smiles in show business) convey her love of performing and she makes the audience in suburban Waltham, Massachusetts, feel that we are giving her a gift by coming out to see her on this blustery day. That appreciation is part of the gift that she gives to us, along with her warmth, talent, and professionalism. There aren't many of her kind left. You'd be paying top dollar for a show like this in New York or Las Vegas. See her while she's in our town.

Photo credit: Joseph Moran

 

 

 

 

 

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