Review: SAMUEL VINCENT AUBUCHAN & FRIENDS Sing Burt Bacharach with Joy at Green Room 42

On December 3, 2024, a first-rate composer’s oeuvre was on display at The Green Room 42, in a show by a big-voiced vocalist, along with a big list of guest singers (six!) for solos and duets with him, presenting big hits and a bounty of songs.  The melodist in question was Burt Bacharach, who died last year at the age of 94. Samuel Vincent Aubuchon, a big fan, was the main singer. He can sustain notes well, has particular attractive and sweet sounds in his upper register, and navigates tricky melody lines well.  A performer might feel like he’s hopped on a fast-moving train handling some Bacharach tunes that are challenging and demand focused attention as they zip by, with little chance to do much except keep pace and enjoy the ride.

A young fellow early in his cabaret career (his debut show was last year), this entertainer is quite a capable and likeable guy who seems happy and comfortable on stage.  Much of the time, the evening felt less like a personal cabaret act and more like a concert – presenting a string of songs, rather than an intimate cabaret show of the kind where a performer would seem to be inhabiting the material in a pseudo-autobiographical way, looking into the eyes of individual audience members to make strong connections.  Granted, that agenda is more difficult to pull off at this venue with its proscenium stage.  More significantly, almost all of his patter between songs was about the Bacharach career and credits, as opposed to talking about his life and feelings beyond the fact that he loves the material — but Aubuchon didn’t speak specifically about how the words or message of a song “speaks” to him.  An exception came when he spoke about some personal relationships and how music gets him through tough times, but this happened quite late in the show. More of that might have been more effective earlier, so the audience would feel they “knew” him closer to the start. On the other hand, that kind of sharing isn’t what some listeners crave, and perhaps those less familiar than I am with the history of Bacharach’s work (I’ve been gorging on it for years and recently read his autobiography and that of his third wife and sometime lyricist, Carole Bayer Sager) might be more eager for the information.    

The distinctive musical elements in many of the most famous Bacharach’s songs from the 1960s, with their attention-grabbing unusual chord progressions, time signature changes, bounce and drive, can overshadow the well-crafted lyrics of Hal David (1912-1921).  This is especially true if they are performed very much in the styles and tight tempi of the catchy original hit records, many sung by Dionne Warwick, such as “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” and “Walk on By” with rather strict precision and strong, repeating instrumental figures.  And, especially in the first half of the show, the arrangements and playing by the trio led by energized and enthused pianist Michael Lavine echoed those blueprints, giving Samuel Vincent Aubuchon little freedom to backphrase or have a mini-moment’s pause to linger in the lyrics’ moods. The beats and rhythm were often oh-so-heavy, prominent, and dominant. Some performers might need that support and guidance to stay in time and keep in step, but Aubuchon appears to have his own fine sense of rhythm and seems at home with the Bacharach structures and changes, perhaps with such frequent listening to the old recordings so that they are very much and comfortably a part of him. At least that’s how it struck me.  Later songs found him with more room for emotion and to relax into songs that felt…well, more fully felt. These included “Alfie” and “This Guy’s in Love with You,” which this guy set up with “Who Gets the Guy”. An earlier medley he did contained three numbers, but they weren’t related in content to start and continue a story; they just functioned as an opportunity to cram more material into the set.  

As for the guest singers, each with charm and skill, they offered variety in personalities and timbres — and, in duets, some warm chemistry with the star.  However, to me, it seemed a little casual a decision to introduce some of them by just their first names, as if everybody knows them. For the record, they were Sydney Duncan, Zachary Faust, Nicola Gorham, Anthony Rodriguez, Anna Telfer, and Eric Michael Gillett.  The always powerful and impressive Gillett delivered the Bacharach/Elvis Costello collaboration “This House Is Empty Now” with true passion, despite the fact that he had the sheet music/lyric on a music stand for his sole number and was looking down at it a lot. That was a disappointment, but his talent and innate sense of drama made it a highlight anyway.  I should point out that it’s a very long and complex number and has practically no rhymes as cues and clues to what’s next, which makes any lyric harder to memorize. 

Major attention was given to Bacharach & David’s only musical for Broadway – Promises, Promises – both the original 1968 stage score and earlier pop numbers interpolated in the later revival, all in one lengthy section, except for “Knowing When to Leave,” an irresistible choice for the closing, letting the sensibility of its message indicate that there’d be no encore to follow!   

There were a few bumps in the road along the way: a minor misstatement of fact, a flubbed lyric or two, and moments when a singer was not in the light. One guest singer asked the audience to sing along with “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” saying he was sure they knew it, but the crowd apparently didn’t know the words or did not want to participate. As I looked around, I didn’t see anyone’s lips moving.  But they all sailed through quite well. 

In any case, a cavalcade of Bacharach makes for good musical company and the company of performers brought smiles and amiable zing.

 

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Visit Samuel Vincent Aubuchon on Instagram to learn more.

See the Green Room 42's website for the venue's shows

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