BWW Review: Jarrod Spector's JUKEBOX LIFE at Feinstein's/54 Below is Raucous Fun
Jarrod Spector began performing at three years old. A film of his singing 'Toot, Toot, Tootsie' with emphatic gestures shows the talented artist preternaturally polished. We're then treated to a clip from Ed McMahon's Star Search in which the six-year-old, pint-sized pretender performs Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill's 'Mack the Knife.' His parents, he explains, favored Bobby Darin to the extent that they overlooked the song's subject was 'a serial killer.' Tonight's version is brass-centric, Las Vegas swing.
JUKEBOX LIFE, presented at Feinstein's 54/Below, is the most recent iteration in a series of biographical shows. ('Time to move on.') It adds Spector's marriage and his role as songwriter Barry Mann in the Carole King musical BEAUTIFUL to that of playing Frankie Valli in JERSEY BOYS and early aspirations. (Interestingly, he was unaware of both the men into whose shoes he has stepped.) Its title was inspired by a fan who asked, 'What's it like to have this incredible jukebox life?'
