Review: Klea Blackhurst Triumphs Again at Birdland

Life may be unpredictable and some may still agree with Benjamin Franklin’s statement that “Nothing is certain, except death and taxes,” but I’ve found that there have been a few things we can rely on being true, year after year: 

1–Winter weather will end, although maybe not when the forecaster (the groundhog) indicates.

2–You can learn a lot about life from a Broadway musical.

3–-What matters is not where you start; it’s where you finish.

4—If customers go to firecracker Klea Blackhurst’s shows, they get a lot of slam-bang for their buck.

Well, Klea Blackhurst burst onto the Birdland stage in her most recent triumph, belting “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and the parade of entertainment kept marching on. Her thrillingly big voice and the vociferous applause might have scared any groundhogs in a four-block radius deeper into their underground holes, but luckily Groundhog Day was safely several days past this January 27th happening.

Meanwhile, the reliably entertaining performer followed her opening number with some songs from Broadway musicals, claiming that the shows had taught her life lessons in her early days.  She cited examples as she told tales of pursuing her goal of being cast in musicals that would come to New York.  One lesson about surviving the ups and downs: Seesaw’s words to the wise, revealed when she shared and blared the lyric: “‘It’s Not Where You Start,’ it’s where you finish.  And you’re gonna finish on top.”  Referencing Gypsy, currently in revival down the street from Birdland, she explained that she’d made note of the showbiz advice offered in the score’s “You Gotta Have a Gimmick”; she didn’t perform that number, but, like the character who does it in the musical, she plays the trumpet.  We were informed that Klea took up the instrument as a kid with the goal of getting gigs in the pit orchestras of musicals before she realized her embouchure was too limited to handle a full score.  But, as an extra attention-grabbing gimmick, she incorporates a bit of trumpeting in her act.  Its brassy sound is an audio cousin to her own vocal timbre.  However, she’s been deftly demonstrating increasing adeptness at honey-sweet sounds for effectively warm, vulnerable ballads.  

The patter mostly focused on adherence to perseverance, recounting the productions she was cast in somewhere that she hoped would be remounted on Broadway with her: the “Almosts” (or, optimistically, the “Not Yets”).  Naturally, the anecdotes served to set up and give personal context to a song sample from each. The admitted frustrations and disappointments let her show vulnerability, but few clouds of black are in Blackhurst skies for long, as she finds their silver linings (enjoyable runs, learning songs she can use in concerts and cabaret acts, and more life lessons).  She’s honest, but not one to invite us to a self-pity party by any means; she keeps her sense of humor and perspective, taking things in stride, moving on, and is a clever, consistently lovable and savvy entertainer.  It was great to hear solid material introduced by this ever-spunky sparkler, such as the endearing “Dear Mr. Gershwin” (Radio Gals) and the wild “The Yodeling Muchacha” (Buffalo Gals) with yodeling aplenty, and the sagas of long-gestating projects adapted from the comic strip and sitcom about the maid named Hazel and the movie The Nutty Professor.

And then there was the terrific “Taking the Veil,” about taking on the discipline needed for dedication to a long run in a musical.  That number is special because it gave her a chance to actually play a real-life character who’s been her idol — Ethel Merman — in a delicious musical called Merman’s Apprentice (book and lyrics by Stephen Cole, music by David Evans) that I vividly remember coming to happy life one memorable night at Birdland around the time the cast recording was in my hands and ears.             

During the night, we heard about the theatre-loving girl’s early years back in Utah, with mentions of her mom (who performed in musicals), collecting cast albums (“We loved musical comedy and JELL-O”), and a decision to move to New York City “because that’s where they keep Broadway.”  There was a relaxed comfort zone shown interacting with the musicians she’s often worked with (“Keep vamping!” she smiles at them when they launch into a number and she realizes her throat is dry and she casually crosses to the edge of Birdland’s stage to get some water.)  The expert players are ubiquitous cabaret drummer Daniel Glass, the seemingly unflappable bassist Ray Kilday, and pianist/musical director with frequent flyer miles on Klea Airlines, Michael Rice. His arrangements are a pleasing mix of inventiveness (a “Don’t Rain on My Parade” that goes its own way, bubbly rather than angry) to respectful homage (letting “It’s Not Where You Start” start, continue and end by embracing the zingy shaping Wally Harper created for Barbara Cook), with other charts suggesting Broadway blueprints without slavishly copying.  

Other Klea Blackhurst shows, like her “Box Set” series at Chelsea Table and Stage, which she's staging again starting this month, are mostly history-packed surveys themed around one musical figure (songwriters Jerry Herman, Hoagy Carmichael, and Vernon Duke, and the Merman marathon), but it’s a treat to have one built around the history of K.B. herself.  She projects someone comfortable with who she is as a performer, singing these words: “No matter what you cannot rearrange me into a shy, a demure and a strange me/ You'll never change me to what I'm not/ I'm all I've got, and I've got quite a lot of whatever I've got.” The kinetic “I’m All I’ve Got,” is a number introduced by Michele Lee on Broadway in Bravo Giovanni  and recorded by Liza Minnelli on her very first solo album, but it feels custom designed for this dependable dynamo.  So: Bravo, Blackhurst and band for a full program of fulfilling, fun-filled philosophy via music.

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Photos of Klea Blackhurst at Birdland by Kevin Alvey 

Find more on the star and her upcoming dates at www.kleablackhurst.com

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