Review: Nicole Henry's Return Engagement Plays To A Packed House At Birdland

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick, your RAINBOW Reviewer back again. Grabbing that silent T in cabareT to bring you all the Tea!

D’ja miss me, my angels? Yes, indeed, for the next few paragraphs, you will once again have your rainbow boy back in the saddle. Owing to a divine convergence, Bobby was asked to take an unexpected sojourn to the distinguished Birdland Jazz Club to pinch hit for BroadwayWorld Cabaret. Soooooo, little ol’ yours truly found ourselves seated at a table with fellow BroadwayWorld contributor, Stephen Mosher, to catch the act of jazz vocalist supreme, Nicole Henry, in her July 15th return to the NYC hot spot. And speaking of, on an excessively warm night when the hood was hot as Hell’s Kitchen with Satan’s Mama cooking family dinner, the only thing more sizzling than the pavement outside was the stage inside. Stepping to the mic in a gorgeous, form-hugging, fire-engine red evening dress, Nicole kicked off the night with a slow-burn rendition of the Gershwin/Heyward aria SUMMERTIME. Beginning at a tempo so slow as to heighten the sensual agony of the music in the first few bars, her four-piece combo then snuck in some bounce to the beat, and we were off to the races. As the beats intensified, Nicole’s voice took over the room with her full range and power, so much so that one could have wondered where she could go from here… but then she went there.

Singing to a completely packed house (if there had been any more patrons, they would have had to hang them from the ceiling, my lambs!), La Henry stayed on the older jazz back roads with a set list to please any American Songbook aficionado. A real highlight of the evening was FLY ME TO THE MOON in a minor key arrangement that allowed her to tap into a truly haunting vocal quality. This, paired with the superb stylings of Richie Goods on bass, yielded a number that was just not your grandma’s FLY ME TO THE MOON. As the rest of the instruments crept up on the song, they began to groan and growl under the Lady in red, pushing the tune around in vastly unexpected ways. An ascending chromatic scale in Aaron Lebos’ guitar matched Henry’s vocal rise through a chord progression that harnessed much power all the way through the climax of the song until she fell into the deep vocal well of her final strains.

Nicole’s patter was, quite simply, a conversation with her listeners. She spoke to us, never really indicating that she was telling a story when she was telling one. She was not a comedian who landed jokes or an actress who performed a humorous monologue, she just talked and made her audience laugh, sigh, or utter a knowing “Ohhhh,” as any friend would do when chatting about the day-to-day events since that last time we saw each other. However beautifully decked out she was on that stage, the entire evening had that feel of a lady with her friends, picking up right where she had left off. She could very well have begun the show with, “Now where was I? … Oh yes, SUMMERTIME.” After singing Frank Leosser’s NEVER WILL I MARRY, Nicole took time to speak with deep soulful reverence about her female influences, Nancy Wilson (who made Loesser’s song famous beyond its Broadway origins) and the great Carmen McRae. With the latter’s song, JUST A LITTLE LOVIN’, and a surprising rhythmic palette in the arrangement, Nicole’s performance mined some real passion from the music.

Along with Goods’ expert bass and the unbelievable guitar playing by Lebos (whose improv solos were unparalleled joys to hear), David Cook on piano added a magnificent buoyancy while never overpowering, and the undeniable rhythmic foundation by Mike Piolet on drums ensured that what we all got on that night at Birdland was a night to be remembered for all time. The final highlight of the set for Little Bobby had to be what the lady described as her “Mic check song.” Many professional singers have that one tune they take out on stage with them during set up, to hear, and most importantly feel, the room before the audience arrives, and, for Nicole, that song is THE NEARNESS OF YOU. From her opening bars, one could deeply sense the love and respect she has for Hoagy Carmichael’s composition. Her sultry elongated intonation quite literally poured the song out like bitter-sweet syrup, leaving the room breathless. Oh, there were two more impeccable numbers after that, but for this rainbow reviewer, that was the show and that was all we needed to give Nicole Henry our heartfelt…

5 out of 5 rainbows (BTW - Stephen Agrees With Bobby Here)

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You can keep up with Nicole on her IG here and on Ye Olde FaceBooke here.

Nicole has simply skads of recordings on the Spotifies here.

All photos by the marvelous Stephen Mosher.

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