Review: With SOUVENIRS, A TRIBUTE TO THE SONGS OF JOHN PRINE, Marissa Mulder Fills Birdland Theater With Rarified Air

Birdland is a jazz club, it has always been a jazz club, and people everywhere know it as a jazz club. Thankfully, with the creation of The Birdland Theater downstairs, the parameters have greyed a little and other genres of music fill these hallowed jazz halls, and Sunday night an audience of enthusiastic patrons filled every seat in the house to listen to Marissa Mulder sing some folk music. Even saying that there will be folk music at Birdland feels a little odd... but this is a Marissa Mulder show, and even though this linchpin of the cabaret community has been known to croon a show tune from time to time, to serve up The Songbook now and then, Mulder is well-known and well-loved for her treatments of Tom Waits compositions and her shows centered around some dudes name John and Paul. Marissa Mulder is a cabaret performer who slips, with ease, between the decades and within the genres, making her the perfect person to present seventy-five minutes of John Prine.

Don't worry, urged Ms. Mulder, if you don't know the works of John Prine, at the start of her show - a wise thing to do because Mulder, an artist with a huge fan base, commands an audience that will turn up anywhere she does to hear anything she sings. There is every chance that some of the Birdland regulars walked in the door, about to get an education in John Prine, which they did, and thank goodness it came at the hands of Marissa Mulder. Tribute shows can be a very tricky genre to navigate, sometimes leaning only on the creations, which leaves the composer undiscovered, others tending toward college classroom, which leaves the audience uninspired. Thankfully, Ms. Mulder arrived prepared, having done her homework, her research, her memorization, and her script, the result being a casual, comfortable evening of listening to her tell stories, seemingly, about her Daddy or her favorite Uncle, or possibly even her Grandpappy. No droning reading from a binder was there, no lifeless recitation of a Wikipedia page was this: here was a seeming personally-informed recounting of true stories from a man's life, being conducted by a woman who is a perfect bridge between the audience and the stories, both meeting at the middle, where Marrisa was constantly connected to every moment, every aspect, every thought, feeling or philosophy in the room.

There is a quality that Marissa Mulder possesses, a quality that comes across in certain performers, every now and then - it is rare and it is special, a combination of sweetness, kindness, purity of heart. The late actress Georgia Engel is a person who, immediately, comes to mind when trying to pinpoint the quality. It can be mistaken as being "Pollyanna"-esque but that isn't the vibe one gets from Marissa (though she did apologize to her father for having to drop the F-bomb during one of her John Prine stories). What one gets from Marissa Mulder, her entire time on the stage, is good will: she has nothing but love to give, and it is as refreshing as it is intoxicating.

Most intoxicating, though, is the Mulder Music. It is entirely appropriate that Marissa should be singing this genre because so much of John Prine's work - both lyrical and musical - is rooted in humanity, humanity at its most pure place, and when she marries her own pure voice to his music full of messages, it is actually possible to close your eyes, allowing her performance to create in the mind visions of lush, tall, green pastures buried in the valley that connects snow-capped mountain ranges set against a sky of palest blue. Mulder and Prine together create a sound of such unadulterated beauty as to nourish the soul. With her steadfast commitment to his lyrics and his melodies, Marissa makes her voice the conduit bringing to the audience the Prine pathos, humor, and message, and there is no overacting from Mulder, ever, only the pretty and pristine sound of the music that he created and that she hears, really and truly hears, and wants to bring to her audience. And though particular highlights in the performances range from the soulful "Hello In There" to the hilarious "Illegal Smile" and the sometimes difficult to hear "Sam Stone", the surprise treat of the evening was watching Marissa and her colleagues: Musical Director Jon Weber stays with Mulder every minute of the show, his eyes never leave her, following every move she makes, ready to catch, support, and protect her when she needs, and the playful manner with which Marissa and guitarist Mike Rosengarten work provides a glimpse into the trust, friendship, and respect each has for the other. It is befitting of John Prine's aesthetic to have his work honored with such heart, so much integrity, and so prevalent a generosity of spirit.

Something that hasn't been especially generous in most of the cabaret rooms since I started this job in August of 2019 is light, and we have reached the unfortunate time when something has to be said about it. There is a frustrating tendency from the light booth of several of the rooms toward placing an artistic choice for mood lighting over the essential need for the audience to see the artist on the stage. This is not a pattern that is exclusive to any one club, almost all of the clubs have been guilty of this at one time or another. Marissa Mulder has beautiful, expressive eyes, eyes that could not be seen from the second row where this writer squinted and strained to get a good look at the storyteller. It seems that the time has come for one to offer that the lighting designers and tech directors of (many of) the clubs might consider removing one amber or blue gel from their light grid, allowing at least one white light to shine on the artist, for the benefit of the audience, the guests who have paid to see the performer before them. Or perhaps the directors of the various shows in the various clubs might consider standing in the house during the tech rehearsal and looking to see if their star is singing in the dark; many is the time that the answer will be yes. Ambiance is one thing, Wait Until Dark is quite another, and it is a crying shame when an interesting, invested, attractive, emotive, and gifted storyteller is left, unseen, singing in the dark - it's bad for the story, it's bad for the storyteller, it's bad for the audience.

Let's all put the artists in the light, shall we?

Marissa Mulder: Souvenirs, A Tribute to the Songs of John Prine was a one-off performance but other great shows can be seen at Birdland. Check their calendar HERE.

Marissa Mulder has a website HERE.

Marissa Mulder gets a five out of five microphones rating for performing her entire show without the use of a lyric sheet, tablet, or music stand.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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