I was invited to a unique press event for Abington Theatre Company’s Robin and Me: A little Spark of Madness, which opens at Theatre 4 at Theatre Row on April 15th for a one-month run. The show was written and performed by actor, voiceover artist and playwright Dave Droxler, and directed by Chad Austin. The event, which took place in show’s rehearsal space on Eighth Avenues, presented a roughly ten-minute snippet of the show, after Mr. Austin set up the story.
Dave Droxler and Chad Austin
The one-man show is a tour de force for the Mr. Droxler, whose autobiographical character has Robin Williams as his imaginary friend, muse, acting coach and mentor. Droxler not only effortlessly switches between his own character and that of Robin Williams, but he invokes his parents and other characters, switching on a dime among them. Even more impressively, not only does he do a dead-on vocal and physical manifestation of Robin, he riffs in real time with the audience, zeroing in on various aspects of those in attendance. In Droxler’s brief performance, we saw humor and pathos, and the actor quickly established enough of a back story to bring all present into his world.
When asked about the germination of the show, he told me, “I would always do a Robin Williams impression… I would kind of do him naturally, when I was nervous. I wrote this other show, called Walken on Sunshine, which was a part of the Fringe Festival. I was doing Christopher Walken in it [he did a quick impression on request], and I had this whole thing where an actor was trying to get Walken in a film. So, I had this one moment where I would do Robin improve and it always got a big reaction. People would always say, ‘When are you gonna do something about Robin Williams?’” Eventually, Droxler realized he’d been using Williams as a base of inspiration not only as a performer, but also just as a human being.
In some ways the show is reminiscent of Woody Allen’s play and film, Play it Again, Sam,” in which Humphrey Bogart was Woody’s muse and mentor who’d advise him through various situations. In that show, an actor portrayed Bogart. Mr. Doxler takes that similar premise to several levels higher.
Today, The Boulevardier was invited by a donor friend to watch the Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) band rehearse for their upcoming performance, in the rehearsal space/classroom just pass Dizzy’s.
Panoramic shot
It is an annual event before the pandemic, and this was the first one in several years. It was an extraordinary experience. Founder Wynton Marsalis was in his usual trumpet chair, but reed man Ted Nash led the band through the rehearsal, with the great Lew Tabackin on tenor sax and flute. Watching all these cats in street clothes was cool enough, but I later learned all of them were sightreading the scores for the very first time. Their level of musicianship is so high that you would have thought they’d been rehearsing for weeks.
Afterwards, the group of us and many of the musicians, including Messrs. Nash and Tabackin, walked over to Dizzy’s for a sumptuous buffet. Some words were spoken and questions were taken.
This was quite the exciting day. I’ll have to grab a ticket for this concert!
I will have my 150th review/article published in January 2023 — that’s in a total of 17 months as a reviewer. Publicists have been sending me CDs or emailing the tracks, and thus I will also begin to review these, initially here on The Boulevardier, but hope to get them picked up by one or more of the jazz sites. I also expect to do more features and interviews in 2023.
We’re off to a great start with the Joe Lovano Big Band on January 4th, though we also saw the Greg Ruvalo Big Band on New Year’s Day, but it was not picked up. As of January 21st, nine shows for review have been scheduled for the month, with three already published and a fourth submitted.
End of year summary: I slowed down a bit compared with 2022, as I also returned to performing, and became a part-time tour guide. I reached my 211th published review on December 26th. Not bad for two and a half years as a jazz and cabaret critic!
Love is Just Around the Corner The Green Room 42 May 4, 2022
In an imaginary world, the secret love child of Mel Tormé and Liza Minnelli would be … Nicolas King. Take all of Mel’s finest gifts of vocal and musical prowess and syncopated rhythm magic, and his real-life mentor Liza’s (and by extension, Judy Garland’s) show biz instincts and pizzazz, and you might wind up with this kid. (Kid? Mr. King, once a child star, is now 30!) Of course, that would not explain his warm and wonderful parental units, Erik and Christina King, who were present for tonight’s show.
Mr. King came to The Green Room 42 dressed in a somewhat conservative dark suit and tie, albeit with a sparkling white dress shirt. The singer also had a kick-ass, make that world class, trio in tow. It would be enough to have Steve Doyle on bass and Daniel Glass on drums. But Tedd Firth on piano means you’re going to get the kind voicings and vamps you rarely get even on the finest of nights in the grandest of clubs (except perhaps from the late Mike Renzi, who Nick was fortunate to work with virtually all of his adult life and even well into the pandemic, virtually).
The evening got off to a late start due to some venue issues, but it was worth the wait for the “Sweetheart of 42nd Street,” as he was announced. At a time when he is “learning contentment, Nick crooned a tune introduced by Liza Minnelli on Broadway in Flora the Red Menace, “Happy Song” (John Kander/Fred Ebb), over Steve Doyle’s walking bass. The song rose to a big finish, setting up a beautiful ballad, “Ask Yourself Why” (Michel Legrand/Alan and Marilyn Bergman). Mr. King often interpolates spoken words and cadences into his songs, something of a Liza-ism, that bring an intimate, almost conversational aspect to his delivery. He has mastered the ability to make every one of them sound the idea just popped into his head.
The young performer announced it was time for “an emotional spring-cleaning song,” really a medley, a cue for a long, spectacular vamp by Tedd Firth that earned its own ovation. “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” (Tommy Wolf/Fran Landesman) might have done the trick on its own, but the tonic to this gin was Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things.” If anyone should know from emotional spring-cleaning, it’s Cole Porter. This song is nearly always done uptempo, a la Sinatra, but here, with Firth’s sublime assistance, Mr. King sang it very slowly, creating a deep emotional connection, before returning to “Spring” for the final cleanup. Stunning.
Nick’s maternal grandmother, the delightful singer Angela Bacari, announced from the crowd, “I think you’re going to need this!” and brought a cocktail to the stage. Nick demurred, saying he couldn’t possibly drink and sing — before taking a little taste and putting the drink on a chair for an “ode to a glass.” It was a set-up, of course, and a fun one. Nick went into “A Little Taste,” the witty, Dave Frishberg jazz standard with lines like “In my condition, this is a risky proposition” and “It’s a sedation, good for a sticky situation.”
A wonderful and surprising treat was found in, of all things, “Hit Me Baby One More Time” (Max Martin). Yes, the Britney Spears debut pop hit from her first album. No, seriously! Here, Nick dismissed Tedd Firth and sat at the piano. He somehow made this piece of pop fluff into an interesting song. Better yet, after a smooth transition from the piano while Tedd slipped back onto the piano bench, he did a scat solo!
Mr. King sang “You are There”(Johnny Mandel/Dave Frishberg), a song dedicated to the late Mike Renzi, who died suddenly in September 2021.
My dearest dream is gone. I often think there’s just one thing to do. Pretend the dream is true, and tell myself that you … are there.
The star was visibly affected by these lyrics. It was a lovely musical eulogy.
The jazz highlight of the night was “Pick Yourself Up” (Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields), a song introduced by Fred Astaire in Swing Time in 1936. Going for baroque, so to speak, Mr. King borrowed the entirety of Mel Tormé’s sensational arrangement Tormé created with George Shearing, including the spoken introduction of the Swing Time plot and the Bach-like fugue piano and scat parts originally improvised by Tormé. There are few singers or pianists around today who could pull this off (although, of course, John Colianni, who, like Shearing and Renzi, played the piece with Tormé for years, is still active)
To set up Songheim’s “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods, Mr. King recited an ancient Greek proverb worth, repeating here. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” They just might listen, if they heard Nicolas King tell them in song. Somewhat ironically, it may have been the opening night of a two-week run of Into the Woods at City Center, along with Ken Page’s simultaneous show near that venue, that made for a sparser than usual crowd for a Nicolas King show, although it was also livestreamed to many more customers.
The evening’s ”faux finale” was the title song, “Love is Just Around the Corner,” where Mr. King let loose with an Ella Fitzgerald/Mel Tormé-like succession of countless great musical quotes.
The encore was a gorgeous, sensitive interpretation of “A Time for Love” (Johnny Mandel/Paul Francis Webster) that earned a second standing ovation for Mr. King.
Nicolas King is a terrific powerhouse of an entertainer. He makes everything look effortless, but you can trust that it takes a lot of hard work to make it look that easy.
For 1922, I continued my new writing gig as a reviewer of jazz and cabaret shows, primarily for Theater Pizzazz. I wrote a total of 100 reviews, with one being pulled from the publication but later posted here on The Boulevardier. I also wrote a number of reviews for Broadway World and NiteLife Exchange. Reviews for those publications are indicated in parentheses.
In 2021, I reviewed a total of 44 shows for Theater Pizzazz, with two more that were not published except here on The Boulevardier. Those reviews can be found on this post: bit.ly/MyTPreviews.
Each month, I will update this page with the review list. The linkable titles are for completed reviews. Any others (in italics) are shows I’ve seen but for which I have not yet submitted the review.
In 2021, I became a reviewer of jazz and cabaret shows for Theater Pizzazz. I reviewed a total of 44 shows for the publication, one of which was too late for publication and another which was superseded by another reviewer who was inadvertently assigned to the same show and submitted his ahead of mine.
I’m very proud of this achievement. I’ve had the opportunity to review many artists I know and love personally, or are fans of, as well as take on many challenges to write about performers with whom I was completely unfamiliar. All of this – 42 published reviews — in less than four months.
The two unpublished reviews, an early practice review, and a review for a Facebook group I co-manage can be found in this blog. Here is a list of all 42 published reviews by artist and the date of the show. I’ve connected direct links to each of the reviews listed.
Back in 1977, I saw the comedian Robert Klein when he came to the University of Maryland for a show. I can still remember many details of it. But most of all, I remember the opening act. A huge fellow waddled across the stage, wearing overalls, possibly weighing close to 300 pounds, though my memory might be playing tricks, as he does not look nearly that heavy on his album cover. The audience did not know who he was – he was not introduced – and some people laughed at his appearance, which saddened me. He looked like he might be the maintenance man or a piano tuner, if played by Oliver Hardy. Then he sat down at the piano, to everyone’s surprise. He played and sang. When he opened his mouth to sing, I was mesmerized. He also accompanied himself on guitar for a few songs. He played both instruments with great skill. And I loved his voice and his songs. He was funny and self-deprecating. After the show, I went straight to the record store in the Student Union and bought his album, “A Simpler Time,” on A&M Records. Many other students did the same. I thought for sure he would be a big star. I must have played this record hundreds of times, and I can still hear “Oooh, I’ve got no lights. Oooh, I’ve got no heat,” whenever I’ve lost power or heat. And I know “I’ve been down this road before,” and that has been a very pleasant earworm when it hits me.
Despite my expectation that Katakis would be the next Billy Joel, I never heard of him again. Some years ago, after many attempts to find out what became of him, I discovered he had become a successful “writer who also takes photographs,” a professor of Native American literature, and more, in a career lasting more than four decades. He’s no longer that huge fellow I saw in 1977, either. Katakis has published a number of titles, including a spectacular book of his journeys around the world, Photographs and Words. And he manages the literary estate of Ernest Hemingway! I found his email and wrote him a letter to acknowledge him and ask what happened to his music career. Weeks later, he found the email in his spam folder and wrote me back. I learned that he quit the music business maybe a year after this show, just disgusted with it. He was really thrilled and appreciative to learn he had made such an impact in his short time making music. He had to read the letter to his wife. It was, I suppose, his “Moonlight Graham” (Field of Dreams) moment. “You were good, Doc!”
The album is long out of print. And nothing in any of Katakis’s bios even mentions his early career. After many years, someone in Japan finally had the good sense to put the album on YouTube. It is, in fact, the soundtrack to a video of the actual album playing on a turntable, and it sounds pristine. I’m perhaps as moved today as I was some 44 years ago. And wondering if I or a wise reader of this post can possibly cover a couple of these lost tunes, which deserve another day in the sun.
This was meant to be a livestreamed and videotaped performance, in addition to the live audience at Don’t Tell Mama for the monthly event. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, there’s no video and no photos available. So you had to be there.
Here’s my write-up:
I only encountered Susannah McCorkle once, well before I even knew about the cabaret scene, at an event at the 42nd Street Automat produced by WNEW-1130 radio sometime in the early 1980s. Jonathan Schwartz played her regularly. Her rendition at the event was the first time I’d ever heard anyone sing “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year.”
It was quite a coup for Jerry Osterberg to get Allen Farnham, who is currently in the pit for The Lion King on Broadway, as the musical director and accompanist today. He had to leave early for that show.
Danny Bacher is a funny and talented singer and master of the soprano sax (or as Jerry called it, a flute). Danny likes to throw in funny little asides in the songs. He started the verse to Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “Accentuate the Positive”, singing “Gather ‘round me, everybody…. But not too close.” On “You Go To My Head,” with a bossa beat, he sang, “So I say to myself…. Self?” He brought up Lucy Wijnand for a duet on Johnny Mercer’s “At the Jazz Band Ball,” then finished with Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “How Insensitive,” with Lucy on vocal. Lucy is a fresh-faced young woman whose voice is reminiscent of Sarah Vaughn when she uses her lower register. I learned later that, to no surprise, Vaughn is a big influence on Lucy. A lovely “I’ll Take Romance” (Ben Oakland/Oscar Hammerstein II) had a light swinging rhythm with a bridge played as a waltz. Lucy introduced Rodgers & Hart’s humorous “I Wish I Were In Love Again” with the rarely sung verse, and finished big.
Gabrielle Stravelli is always a delight. She sings with a twinkle in her eyes, radiating joy as she masterfully sings and swings. Gabrielle sang the verse to Gershwin’s “They All Laughed,” which I’d never heard before, then taking us on a fun adventure with her versatile voice.
Gabrielle shared that the first jazz standard she’d ever been introduced to was “Skylark” (Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny Mercer), and sang the ballad beautifully. She ended her set with the funny Dave Frishberg song “My Attorney Bernie.”
Broadway and jazz artist Aisha de Haas was another great get by Jerry. She sang a sultry “Lover Man” (Jimmy Davis/Roger Ramirez/James Sherman). She sang a song she first learned from the record her aunt (Geraldine Bey) made with her group, the Bey Sisters, “Every Time We Say Goodbye” (Cole Porter), with the verse. The line “How great the change from major to minor,” one of my favorite phrases from any song, felt especially poignant in her hands.
Aisha finished her set with the jazziest song of the show, Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.”
Danny and Lucy returned for a great old-school duet on “Thanks For The Memory” (Ralph Rainger/Leo Robin), after which Farnham had to dash off to The Lion King.
The final artist was Mark Nadler, who shared with us that Susannah was one of his closest friends. He became visibly choked up speaking about her. He made it clear how fun she was to be with, and that in their first encounter, Susannah, then writing an article about Irving Berlin for American Heritage, found Mark at a show and asked him, “Why is Irving Berlin indispensable to you?”
Mark is a great showman with considerable ability. For Irving Berlin’s “Isn’t This A Lovely Day,” he made the piano sound like it was raining while singing “Let the rain pitter-patter.” He brought back Gabrielle Stravelli for an adorable duet of “Two Sleepy People,” infusing great humor through their bon mots, phrasing and body language, turning the lovely couple of the song into what might be described as “two creepy people” who smile at one another through clenched teeth.
Mark played Billy Strayhorn’s “Something to Live For,” which had erroneously been credited to Ervin Drake in the program. “How thrilled would Edith have been to know she was married to a short, black, gay man?”
For the final number of the program, Mark recreated Susannah McCorkle’s arrangement of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (Irving Berlin). Normally a fast, happy tune that glamorizes even the hard parts of show business, here it is a tour de force of tragedy and irony, pathos and tears, with the song becoming a metaphor for surviving failure. From its rubato opening to the big finish that let us know it’s going to be okay, and let’s go on with the show, Mark’s stunning, dramatic interpretation of Susannah’s arrangement was simply spectacular.
Bravo, brava, bravissimo, bravissima…. Fini!
The American Popular Song Society Skylark: Remembering Susannah Don’t Tell Mama 343 West 46th Street, NYC
It’s time to open bike share to other companies. CitiBike/Lyft does not deserve to keep this monopoly. CitiBike is supposed to both augment and sometimes replace certain modes of transportation, rather than have their specialized bikes be used as recreational bikes that compete with bike rental companies. While it’s great when it works, it fails miserably at this far more often than it succeeds. Let’s compare it to taking a bus, which is probably the closest comparison.
Imagine if you took on buses for transportation, but you could never rely on them for these reasons:
The buses are all broken down in your neighborhood, so you have to find another means of transportation.
The buses show up, but the OMNY and other means of paying for your fare are out, so you can’t take the bus.
The bus shows up at your stop, won’t open its doors, and pulls away.
They constantly run out of buses during scheduled hours and you have to walk too far to a stop that has them, and then you have some of the other problems.
You get off the bus properly, but you keep getting charged for the ride and have to call to get this fixed.
One out of three buses has a mechanical issue, and sometimes you have to get off and change buses. One of those three times you can’t get another bus and have to walk to another stop five blocks away.
Some neighborhoods get well taken care of by volunteers replacing the buses, while others have to wait until the next day.
Your daily stop is moved without warning, and you have to figure out where it went.
Bottom line: CitiBike works like the bus system I described above. CitiBike is broken. They keep expanding, but do not have the means, the wherewithal or otherwise take responsibility for keeping the bikes balanced and maintained. The stations take up valuable real estate, which is fine if this worked, but, as Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say, it’s always something. In this past week alone:
Every single afternoon, the station opposite my building goes devoid of all bikes by 5 pm, for several hours.
In one ride alone, I switched bikes three times due to faulty pedals, bad brakes, bad pedals, and a wobbly front fork that made me feel unsafe. The QR code was missing from one of them. Two of the three times, I had to try multiple empty docks until I found one that wasn’t completely dead.
Today, I found the only bike at my station. I rode up the .6 miles to my destination and properly docked my bike. When I returned for another bike, I discovered my ride was still continuing. I had to call customer support to have them manually end the ride. Then I discovered that the entire station was broken, and not a single bike could be undocked. There was no bike available within half a mile, so I walked home with a package in high heat.
Enough! For $179 a year ($15 a month), I expect more. I expect a working system that works most of the time, if not all. I expect that the same consideration is given to my neighborhood as to some in midtown that get concierge service and a constant replenishment of bikes. There’s only one reason this really is happening, and that’s that CitiBike/Lyft is a monopoly in New York. There is no or little competition. It is a closed system, not open to other companies that might be better funded or better organized. No competition disincentivizes companies like this from improving their service.
Friday night was a night of contrasts. I started the evening with three friends to see “Laura Fay and Undercover” at The Cutting Room on this Friday, July 17, 2021.
The Cutting Room recently reopened since the Covid pandemic shut down New York nightlife. Initially opening without food, on this night the kitchen was open, albeit with a limited menu. Pre-show, I had their excellent cheeseburger.
“Laura Fay and Undercover” was the opening act for “The Fopps.” I came to hear Laura Fay and her band, which consisted of Laura Fay Lewis on vocals, her husband Carlo Dano on guitar, John Keim on keyboard, Mike Schoffel on bass, and Graham Clarke on drums. They played a reasonably tight set, though Laura Fay had a music stand with lyrics that she sometimes read from.
Laura Fay told me later that she handpicked and curated the songs to fit her eclectic tastes in rock. And eclectic it was, with the band covering classic rock, blues and soul songs, staying faithful to the spirit of the originals without copying them. The band opened with “Heroes,” written by David Bowie and Brian Eno. They then did the soulful “Chain of Fools” by Aretha Franklin. The third song was a fun surprise. Laura Fay spoke to the crowd. “You can have my husband….,” to which someone in the audience yelled out “He’s right behind you!” She then went into “You Can Have My Husband (But Don’t Mess With My Man),” written by Dorothy LaBostrie in 1959 and introduced by Irma Thomas that year. This was a great, old-school blues number, and Carlo Dano played some excellent lead guitar here. The band performed the Paul Rodgers tribute song “Muddy Waters Blues,” followed by Queen Emily’s “Keep Getting’ Up.” Next the band played the R&B hit “Wishing Well” by Terence Trent D’Arby and the rock ballad “Breathe“ by Pink Floyd.
The next two songs were a bit of an Eric Clapton mini-set. The classic rock “Let It Rain” by Clapton and Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonnie was followed by The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which famously featured Clapton on lead guitar, though Dano did not attempt to copy Clapton’s famous solos.
This was followed by “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” a 1967 Traffic song by Steve Winwood and Chris Wood.
For their “encore” (they skipped the usual walking-off trope and just went into it after thanking everyone for coming), the band launched into a rocking rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin Jack Flash.” This is one of those songs that everyone knows from the first beats of the drums and cowbell. They finished with the great T. Rex song “Bang a Gong” (aka “Get It On”).
I stayed for most of The Fopps’ set. They were a cover band of older rockers, kind of a “Cowsills with edge.” The band performed mainly 60s and 70s songs with lots of harmonies, some of which didn’t quite come together. They shared the keyboard player, John Keim, who changed outfits and wore a fedora for this set.
At this point, my growing group (we were now eight) left for Swing 46, where we caught the last couple of sets of “Professor Cunningham’s” swing quintet, led by the great reed player and singer Adrian Cunningham. I pooped out early for me, and left before midnight.
