Review: MONICA RAMEY Heartily Welcomed Back To Birdland

“Jazz lives, baby!”

That was Monica Ramey on January 19th at the end of the show that brought her back to Birdland.  Well, naturally, jazz lives, and especially at Birdland.  The venerated club continues to present a full calendar of jazz acts every single day of the year, and they are some of the best jazz acts one is likely to find - it’s just a question of what kind of jazz a person wants to hear, and with Monica Ramey at the microphone, there is an absolute certainty that the jazz is going to be great.  It’s specific, though, and that is also great.  

Monica Ramey is a jazz vocalist.  She isn’t just any jazz vocalist, though, she is one of the best.  She has been at it for a while, notably working with the great Beegie Adair, which is a fine letter of reference endorsing her ability - but the painful loss of Adair in 2022 doesn’t detract from Ramey’s individual gifts as a vocalist, it merely repositions those gifts to a tighter spotlight on herself and her voice.  And what a voice it is, pure and pretty and filled with purpose.  If you were to take a bolt of chocolate brown silk (or forest green) and run it between your thumb and fingers, that is Monica Ramey’s voice.  It is smooth but laden with texture, it is rich but never heavy, and it is luxurious with sensuality.   The lady and the voice belong on a list with the other greats, indeed, on January 19th, this writer had visions of Julie London, Diahann Carroll, and Anita O’Day dancing through his head.  Simply standing on its own, Monica Ramey’s voice is a joy of nature - when you add a great jazz combo of musicians and a satisfying set list to the proceedings, you set yourself up with a proper evening of jazz entertainment, the kind a person expects to get at Birdland.

For her sold-out engagement at the 44th Street club, Monica Ramey shared the stage with a trio led by Lori Mechem on Piano, Roger Spencer on Bass, and Eric Halverson on Drums, and even though (as Ramey pointed out) Halverson had joined the more regular colleagues of Ramey, Spencer, and Mechem only an hour before showtime, the foursome presented a letter-perfect evening of jazz, one attended by many out-of-towners who flew in especially for the occasion.  Kicking off with a classic choice for starting one’s club act, “This Could Be The Start of Something Big,” Ramey and co. set the tone for the night: this was going to be a performance of solid jazz vocal and combo entertainment featuring songs the audience would know, compositions from the Great American Songbook that all could sit back and enjoy.   And even though the opener was executed to excellence, it was in her second number, Cole Porter’s “Dream Dancing,” with which Monica locked it down.  This was the number to tell newcomers to the Ramey style that she doesn’t come to mess around - this is a no-funny-business kind of gal, ready to interpret the music and the lyrics while maintaining the authors’ intent.  And on the subject of no funny business, Ramey and her trio stuck to a show structure that didn’t just showcase each of the artists on the stage, it delivered to the audience precisely that for which they bought the ticket.  For every number, Ms. Ramey took the mic, did her part, then stepped aside for the musicians to excel, returning only after the audience had had numerous opportunities to show their appreciation with a round of applause, a pattern that lasted for the entire seventy-five-minute program.   And as enjoyable as the vocals were for all of the evening, those musical interludes were equally so because the proficiency of the musicians was at such a high level, while remaining accessible.  

When attending a jazz performance, it is vital that the artistry be accessible to the audience, to all of the audience.  Only days before the Ramey show, this writer caught the Emmet Cohen show on the same stage.  Cohen and co. played no vocals, which meant their work was restricted to interpreting the musical compositions they played, allowing them to get creative with their treatments and instrumental explorations.  This kind of jazz artistry will tend to land differently with each audience member, depending upon their history of jazz consumption and their understanding of the art form, ranging from ecstatic to alienated, depending on the cacophony.  With the Ramey show, the proficients with instruments were interpreting music that came with a lyric, a story, and an actor telling that story.  There was little (if any) need for deep dives into treatments and raucousness - only exciting arrangements and technical greatness, which is precisely what Spencer, Mechem, and Halverson provided, and in the extreme.  The audience went wild for each magnificent solo.

As for Monica Ramey herself, the lady is simply marvelous.  Every music show requires a certain amount of communing with the audience, and Ms. Ramey is quite adept at it.  Sharing stories about Drunk Shakespeare, Playboy After Dark, the composers, and (of course) Beegie Adair, she proved herself a good-natured and droll hostess, a pleasure to listen to at chat and a powerhouse to hear at play.  Among the highlights of her musical programming, there was a seriously spectacular “Ev’rything I’ve Got” (Ramey’s first outing with the famous Blossom Dearie tune), an intricately orchestrated “You Fascinate Me So” (always a favorite of this writer), and a sumptuous “It Might As Well Be Spring” but for this lover of this music, it was all about a luscious “Why Try To Change Me Now” that showcased, expertly, the talents of everyone on the stage.  On the subject of expertise, too, it should be said that Monica Ramey knows how to arrange an evening of music for maximum flow.  The placement of each number that was played in the set aided in the manipulation of the audience’s emotions with significance placed on the rise and fall of the musical energy in the room, including a back-to-back mini-set for the band consisting of “I Got My Mojo Working” and the perennial (and perfect) “There’s a Small Hotel” - speaking honestly, the trio could play a night of their own, so superb are they.   As a foursome, though, the combination of contributions from each of the musical artists was sublimely without reproach.  This team of artists did not come to mess around - they came to play it right.  The evening was a prime example of what and how a jazz set should be, reminding one that it is always a treat and a treasure to welcome Monica Ramey, her endearing personality, and her pure, unblemished voice back to the stages of New York City.  Fingers crossed she will make her way back with more frequency in the future.

Find great shows to see on the Birdland website HERE.

Visit the Monica Ramey website HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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