Edward Heyman

Album Review: What Do You Get For The Person Who Has Everything? Celia Berk's New Album NOW THAT I HAVE EVERYTHING, Of Course.

This album, more than any we have heard in a long time, sounds (and most importantly) feels like we’re sitting down in a club, hearing a live performer doing her cabaret set.

BWW REVIEW: TORCH SONG TRILOGY Is Heartbreakingly Beautiful, Poignant And Sadly Still Relevant

TORCH SONG TRILOGY is a heartbreakingly beautiful and poignant story of looking for love and acceptance in a world of judgement and fear. 

BWW Review: Benjamin Eakeley's BROADWAY SWINGER, VOL. 2: ALL OF ME Bounces Brightly with Swing and Jazz

With a beaming smile, a ton of energy, his dazzling vocal instrument, and even delighting audiences with his clarinet, Benjamin Eakeley's debut of BROADWAY SWINGER, VOL. 2: ALL OF ME is a true celebration of the sings of the 1930s.

Michael Feinstein's Jazz and Popular Song Series Returns to Jazz at Lincoln Center's Appel Room for Shows in April, May and June

Once again, beginning Wednesday evening at 7 pm in Jazz at Lincoln Center's spectacular Appel Room, Michael Feinstein shares his taste, knowledge, and infectious enthusiasm with concerts of diverse music and vocals. This year's concert schedule with The Tedd Firth Big Band and special guests includes The Great Jazz Standards, A Right To Sing the Blues, and Sing Me a Swing Song. In a recent interview with BroadwayWorld.com, Feinstein says he thinks the shows are popular not only because they reflect imagination and variety, but also because “they're so clearly spontaneous at a time when music is often pre-canned.” Each evening different vocalists join our host presenting his or her singular style.

BWW Review: Terri Lyne Carrington's Lincoln Center American Songbook Show Is a Patchwork of Strong Vocals Too Often Buried In Sound

Multiple Grammy-winning drummer, composer, producer, and bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington and her group play dense, intense jazz with elusive melody. Ornette Coleman's 'Chronology' arrives like a wall of sound. An adamant and up-tempo 'Body and Soul' (Edward Heyman/Robert Sour/Frank Eyton/Johnny Green) is almost tribal, at odds with familiar mood and lyric intention. Towards the end of Saturday night's show--Mosaic Project: Love and Soul--in the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center's Appel Room, Ms. Carrington executes a lengthy solo spotlighting her extraordinary musicianship, but instrumental arrangements escape me.

BWW Review: Ann Hampton Callaway Features Marilyn Maye and Kurt Elling in THIS IS CABARET Series at Birdland

Last Sunday, New York's Birdland Jazz Club welcomed the third and fourth shows in Ann Hampton Callaway's This is Cabaret series that is subsequently aired on National Public Radio (check local listings for dates and times). As increased exposure is vital to the health of the art form, one can only applaud its emergence. Callaway's special guests (one in each hour segment) were jazz performer Kurt Elling and cabaret Goddess Marilyn Maye.

A Brief Appreciation For Oscar Levant, Soon To Be Played By Sean Hayes

'There's a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.'

BWW Reviews: CAROLE J. BUFFORD Takes the Helm as Hostess of Birdland's Jazz Party With Hoopla, Heat & Heart

On July 5, Carole J. Bufford erupted onto the stage at Birdland for her first Sunday evening as hostess of the club's weekly Jazz Party (which had been helmed most recently by Natalie Douglas and Jane Monheit). The formidable vocalist, glamorous in clingy red, was aided and abetted by a top-notch (also well dressed—Bravo!) quartet featuring Joel Frahm on sax, Ray Marchia on drums, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Musical Director Ian Herman on piano. Special guests for Bufford's inaugural session were Janelle Velasquez and Lianne Marie Dobbs. With Bufford's audacious performance, smart choices, and attention to detail, Sundays promise to be a great deal more fun in midtown Manhattan.

BWW Reviews: Patti LuPone Burns Bright in THE LADY WITH THE TORCH Encore at 54 Below

Patti LuPone, living Broadway legend and Two-time Tony winner, returns to 54 Below with her acclaimed solo show THE LADY WITH THE TORCH. Showcasing her breathy alto and stunning belt, Patti LuPone 'belly ache[s]' (her words) her way through an inspired evening of well-known torch songs. And once the diva takes the stage, there is simply no denying that LuPone's grace, poise, and power are pure magic.

BWW Reviews: LAUREN STANFORD Attempts Channeling the Legendary Helen Morgan at 54 Below

Lauren Stanford (who won the MetroStar Singing Competition at the Metropolitan Room in 2013) has convincingly done herself up to look like the legendary Helen Morgan in her new show, More Than You Know, which she introduced at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in late October and brought to 54 Below this past Friday night. Stanford's presentation is 2/3 singing and 1/3 biography. Research is evident; specific adds color. The use of framed photographs and several conjectured telephone calls is effective (the actress listens). Vocals don't emulate Morgan's controlled vibrato, but Stanford has sufficient musical feel for the period to make mimicry unnecessary. Her uneven contralto can add feeling to a song rather than diminishing it. There are, however, other issues.

BWW Reviews: KATHRYN ALLEN Holds Court On Jazz Singing Great Anita O'Day at The Cutting Room

When Kathryn Allyn, an opera singer now turned Great American Songbook chanteuse, took the stage at The Cutting Room last Tuesday night, she was all va-va-voom in a curve-hugging Valentine red dress. She joined her crackerjack band-musical director Frank Ponzio, bassist Tom Hubbard, and drummer Vito Leszack-to perform homage to her favorite jazz and big band singer Anita O'Day, whose heyday came between the World War II era through the early 1960s.

BWW Reviews: JOEY ARIAS Presents A Sympatico Centennial Tribute to Billie Holiday at Lincoln Center's American Songbook

Vocalist Joey Arias is not what he appears to the uninitiated. This is not a drag performer executing pastiche, but rather an artist serious about music with the talent to offer a full-blooded show. Lifelong affinity for Billie Holiday first professionally surfaced in 1987's Recording Arias on Holiday and continued with the Off-Broadway run of Strange Fruit, an homage to the icon. Her concert Wednesday night for Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, with evocative musical arrangement by Matt Ray, brings Arias' devotion "all the way from downtown above 14th Street."

FLASH FRIDAY: Patti LuPone Pandemonium! EVITA To 54 Below

Today we are saluting one of Broadway's best-loved leading ladies in honor of her new cabaret show kicking off this week at 54 Below, the one and only Patti LuPone.

Nick Ziobro's A LOT OF LIVIN' TO DO Now Available

A sterling new debut album from up-and-coming vocalist Nick Ziobro featuring a slew of musical theatre showstoppers titled A LOT OF LIVIN' TO DO is now available to order.

BWW Reviews: MARK NADLER Is Deliciously Scandalous As His New Show Transforms 54 Below Into a Decadent Jazz Age Speakeasy

When Mark Nadler last performed a solo show at 54 Below, it was a very personal musical exploration of Germany's Weimar Republic of the 1920s, a place and an atmosphere that was dark, dangerous and decadent. I'm a Stranger Here Myself was such a compelling tour de force that it was expanded into a highly praised off-Broadway piece that Nadler staged at the York Theatre last Spring. Nadler's new 54 Below effort, Runnin' Wild: Songs & Scandals of the Roaring Twenties, (which opened last Sunday, ran last night, and will also play on May 7 at 9:30pm and May 14 at 7pm) is like a playful and debauched sequel to Stranger, only in this show—which would be more aptly titled “Reckless Abandon”--Nadler is clearly a gleeful member of the club. To this passionate piano man, America's big cities in the pre-Depression era 1920s were happy, hungry, and hedonistic. There was always a party filled with sex, drugs and booze looking for a place to happen. And goodness knows, Mark Nadler wishes he'd been invited to every one of them. But since he was born too late, all he can do is serve as congenial host in re-creating the speakeasy ambiance and in this show he manages to accomplish that--only without the sex and drugs. Damn!

Nick Ziobro to Debut New CD at Birdland, 5/22

Nick Ziobro, the 17 year-old pop/jazz vocal sensation, will release his debut album A Lot of Livin' to Do on Tuesday, May 20. The new disc, produced by Michael Feinstein - the two-time Emmy and five-time Grammy Award-nominated vocalist, pianist and musicologist - and available through Titanium Entertainment, will be available in stores and digital outlets such as iTunes and Amazon.com. The album's debut single 'This Guy's In Love with You' is now available on iTunes.

BWW Reviews: MAUDE MAGGART is a Delightfully Dreamy Enchantress at Café Carlyle

This past Tuesday evening Maude Maggart, a celebrated young veteran of the cabaret scene, started her debut run at the Cafe Carlyle (which ends tonight with shows at 8:45 pm and 10:45 pm) and her new show certainly didn't disappoint, at least not in the singing department. Throughout a 16-song set, this attractive and willowy brunette from a performing family that now spans three generations was a delightfully dreamy enchantress conveying retro-romantic songs she delivered with the ethereal mezzo soprano style of an early Disney movie heroine of pre-Little Mermaid vintage, only one more worldly wise and seductive.

Review - The Little Mermaid & Patti LuPone at NJPAC

By Disney standards the year and a half run of the original Broadway production of The Little Mermaid was a bit of a disappointment.  In theory, a competently created musical based on the hit animated film would probably run for a year and a half based on the title recognition alone.  My opinion of that show was higher than most of my colleagues.  I enjoyed it, but mostly for the vaudevillian pleasure of seeing a cast of terrific Broadway performers each getting a star turn or two.  But after some script revisions and a whole new visual concept, director Glenn Casale's production of the new Mermaid that just opened at Paper Mill is a well-crafted, delightfully designed and performed charmer.

BWW Review: Celebrity Series of Boston Presents AN EVENING WITH CHRISTINE EBERSOLE

Two-time Tony Award-winning actress Christine Ebersole made her Celebrity Series of Boston debut at Sanders Theatre with an intimate cabaret performance that brought much-needed warmth to a cold January night. The former "Not Ready for Prime Time" player on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE is now the toast of Broadway and Harvard Square.

Sneak Peek: Patti LuPone's 54 Below Album - Track Listing, Cover and More!

Broadway Records and 54 BELOW announced in October that they joined in partnership to create a series of albums recorded live at the brand new venue, 54 BELOW, located just steps away from the heart of Times Square.