Ann Hampton Callaway to Release Peggy Lee Celebration Album Tomorrow
With her artist legacy series, pop/jazz vocalist and songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway paid homage to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan on two critically-acclaimed CDs while staying true to her artistic aesthetic. Callaway continues that series with Fever: A Peggy Lee Celebration!, which highlights the songwriting talents of Lee.
BWW Reviews: With Rhythmic Enthusiasm, NINA HENNESSEY & RAY MARCHICA Host Jazzy Set at Birdland
With new Sunday evening Jazz Party host Carole J. Bufford performing elsewhere last night, the Birdland Jazz Club recruited drummer Ray Marchica and his vocalist wife Nina Hennessy (right), who rounded up some of their talented friends for an evening of vocal and instrumental jazz, new compositions, and golden standards. Marchica's band featured Sean Harkness on guitar, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Bob Quaranta on piano. Special guests included vocalist Marissa Mulder and composer/pianist Ian Herman.
Actress & Recording Star Monica Lewis, Voice of Chiquita Banana, Dies at 93
Monica Lewis, a former Benny Goodman vocalist who headlined the very first broadcast of the 'Ed Sullivan Show,' was THE VOICE of the popular Chiquita BANANA cartoons, clowned opposite Jerry Lewis, Red Skelton and Danny Kaye, turned down a marriage proposal from Ronald Reagan and went on to play co-starring roles in such films as 'Earthquake,' 'Airport 1975' and 'The Concorde--Airport '79,' died on June 12 of natural causes at her apartment in Woodland Hills, CA. She was 93.
CABARET LIFE NYC: Catch-Up Reviews From a Cabaret Spring - BATT, DEROW, FORREST, McNEIL, BARZEE, HENNESSEY
Back on April 1, when he posted his third compilation of delayed cabaret reviews from shows staged during the winter, BroadwayWorld.com's lead New York cabaret reviewer promised Number 4 would come with arrival of summer. Okay, so he missed his self-imposed deadline by a couple of weeks. but here's yet another catch-up column with critiques of a half dozen spring shows performed by Bryan Batt, Dawn Derow, Lynly Forrest, Dennis McNeil, Anastasia Barzee, and Nina Hennessey.
Jillian Laurain's 'Broadway' and Stacy Sullivan's Peggy Lee Tribute Give Audiences Saturday Night 'Fever'
The cabaret gods must be smiling on this reviewer because this past Saturday evening my wife and I celebrated her birthday with an intimate dinner in between a couple of totally engaging shows from two lovely ladies of cabaret; the beautiful Jillian Laurain paying homage to classic Broadway show tunes at the Metropolitan Room, and the beguiling Stacy Sullivan in her MAC and BroadwayWorld.com Award-nominated tribute to Peggy Lee, 'It's a Good Day,' at the Cafe Carlyle. For me and the Birthday Girl, it was definitely a good night.
Stacy Sullivan Channels Peggy Lee in Triumphant Tribute Show at Metropolitan Room
In her new cabaret effort, It's a Good Day: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee (running four more times through next February at the Metropolitan Room), Stacy Sullivan so adroitly articulates and emotionally inhabits the songs-and Lee's life story-through the astute arrangements and the well-crafted script, that it is almost impossible not to come away with a new appreciation for one of America's greatest jazz/blues/pop singers.