Press and Reviews

New York, NY - May 29, 2011

The New York Times, Music Review

American Songbook as Fountain of Youth

By Stephen Holden

Marilyn Maye, with the bassist Tom Hubbard, is performing standards at Feinstein's at Loews Regency.
Photo: Michelle V. Agins/New York Times

“As many of you know, I’ve had three husbands and one meaningful love affair,” the singer Marilyn Maye remarked. “And now that I’m too old to be humble, the good news is that none of ’em worked. This is what I love.”

Ms. Maye was acknowledging to the audience at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency on Wednesday evening that her relationship with her fans has the emotional depth and complexity of a solid, rewarding marriage. At 83 she has the inexhaustible stamina and vocal heft of a woman half her age, and her spirited optimism is irresistibly contagious. By the end of the evening, as is usually the case with her shows, I was walking on air, infused with a giddy certainty that life really is a cabaret.

Accompanied by her usual trio — Tedd Firth on piano, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Jim Eklof on drums — Ms. Maye led off the evening with a suite of songs celebrating the rejuvenating powers of the relationship between artist and audience. Three medleys — “Young at Heart” joined with “You Make Me Feel So Young”; “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” with “That Face”; and “Your Smiling Face” with “I Love to See You Smile,” all anchored by the Leslie Bricusse ballad “When I Look in Your Eyes” — explicitly addressed that chemistry. Bright eyes and smiley faces: as corny as those images may be, Ms. Maye extracted the life force behind them.

“Butter Out of Cream,” a Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman song from “Catch Me If You Can,” stood out as a hardy new addition to a long lineage of upbeat Broadway exhortations to create your own good luck. “I love stories with positive morals,” Ms. Maye said.

Singing a suite of songs revolving around Fats Waller that culminated with “Honeysuckle Rose,” she didn’t shy from embracing comic lubricity; the honey didn’t simply drip; it ran in rivers. A touching tribute to Margaret Whiting, who had a similarly robust attitude, included standards (several of which Ms. Whiting popularized) written by her father, Richard Whiting, and by her mentor Johnny Mercer.

It was inevitable that one day Ms. Maye would tackle “I’m Still Here,” the Sondheim anthem from “Follies” that is a kind of Rorschach for seasoned show business veterans. Some use it to express accumulated anger, others a blasé disenchantment, and others narcissistic self-congratulation. Ms. Maye outdid her previous performances of the song with a calm full-frontal delivery that minimized high drama to evoke the big picture of a fulfilled life near the end of a long wild ride.

New York, NY - May 25, 2011

The Village Voice, La Daily Musto

Marilyn Maye is A-Maye-Zing

by Michael Musto

Marilyn Maye
Photo: Steve Sorokoff

Marilyn Maye is an old-time standards singer who's sort of Helen Lawson meets Anita O'Day, but with a unique sound and an individual spin.

The 80-something singer--enjoying a career renaissance as the queen of cabaret--has a voice as sharp as a tool and a personality that's currently lighting up Feinsteins at Loews Regency, making old showtunes (like songs from My Fair Lady) sound completely new, and even daring to do the un-doable (“Over The Rainbow,” “I'm Still Here”) and make them fresh and personal.

What's more, she takes on a newie (“Butter Into Creme” from Catch Me If You Can) and makes it clear it's an instant classic, a story song of the first order.

Best of all, Maye's patter isn't canned. She goes with the moment.

After doing “It Might As Well Be Spring,“ she joked, “I'm as jumpy as a gentile in the Catskills.”

She informed us, “I've had three husbands and a meaningful relationship,“ then cutely muttered, “He was a bastard.”

And her best utterance of all, during one of her wacky moments:

“Music is fun.”

Especially when it's Maye at the mic.

If you've got that kind of cash, this is where you should spend it!

Even if you don't.

New York, NY - June 1, 2011

The New York Observer

Catch Her If You Can: Marilyn May at Feinstein's

by Rex Reed

Sexually active men may live longer. But talented, indefatigable, crowd-pleasing divas sing longer. Marilyn Maye, 83, is making every minute count. One of her favorite lines is “I’m singing as fast as I can.” And her tumultuous legion of fans is always there, applauding every lyric. On the packed opening night of her new show at Feinstein’s at Loew’s Regency, they made more noise than the traffic outside the glass windows on Park Avenue.

The forceful, ebullient song stylist is not only singing faster, she’s singing better. All of those critically praised record albums and legendary appearances on the old Johnny Carson show that made her a household name have paid off. Time and the weather (not to mention several husbands and a few heated love affairs) may have filed an occasional rough edge on her voice, but she’s forgotten nothing. The new show, called “Maye in May” (because it’s spring and you gotta have a gimmick), goes soft on romance in songs aimed at youth (“Young at Heart,” “You Make Me Feel So Young”), happiness (“That Face,” “Your Smiling Face,” “I Love to See You Smile”) and optimism (“It Might as Well Be Spring”), with smiles as wide as buttercups. Her style is invigoratingly schematic, but–milking four syllables out of words with only two, or reaching for one high note in the middle of a five-bar chorus–it all sounds natural and straight from the heart. Her excellent trio (Tedd Firth on piano, with bassist Tom Hubbard and drummer Jim Eklof) provides both a cushion for her to lean on and a sense of humor (while she pauses on the word “China” in a Randy Newman song, Mr. Firth makes sampan sounds on the keyboard). It’s an eclectic show, with something for everybody. A My Fair Lady medley unleashes the most swinging version of “On the Street Where You Live” I’ve ever heard, replete with a scat chorus Ella Fitzgerald would admire. “Butter Outta Cream,” from the Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman score of the excellent but underpraised show Catch Me If You Can, is cleverness renewed. Peter Allen’s “Everything Old Is New Again” takes on new meaning. The lyrics “Don’t throw your past away/You’re gonna need it some rainy day” never seemed truer. From “Blues in the Night” and “Come Rain or Come Shine,” with Mr. Firth swinging away in full chords, to a tender reading of “My Ideal,” written for Margaret Whiting by her songwriting father, Richard, she really gives you all she’s got. You get your money’s worth.

Picking up some of the slack since the departure of Mabel Mercer and the beloved Sylvia Syms, cabaret royalty of yesteryear, Ms. Maye has also reached the age when so many lyrics sometimes lodge in her brain and she beckons for some prompting–from Mr. Firth, or even her fans. They know most of her songs by heart, and while making up for lost time, she seems anxious to sing them all. This is a good thing. She honors the core of every song, emphasizing fun. It rubs off. What comes through is a sunny desire to make everybody happy. She could write a book about how to work a room and play an audience like a deck of cards. Despite her new status as a cabaret queen, there’s nothing regal or imperial about her, and despite occasional gymnastics (especially on the thrilling up-tempo Fats Waller material), she keeps things light, breezy and wrinkle-free. Even in the drama of Sondheim’s survival anthem “I’m Still Here,” she inserts her own brand of humor, singing “I’ve been through Barbra Streisand … and I’m here.” She can call her show “Maye in May” if she wants, but she’s welcome any time of the year, with open arms.

New York, NY - May 25, 2011

NY Cabaret Examiner

Marilyn Maye is eternally ‘Young at Heart’ in “It’s Maye in May!”

by Sandi Durell

Marilyn Maye
Photo: Matthew Peake

As I left Feinstein’s after Marilyn Maye’s opening last night, I thought to myself “after the many reviews I’ve written about her, I can’t think of any more descriptive words or accolades.”

What’s to say about an 83 year young jazz-pop singer that presents each song as if it were a delicacy at a feast filled with the ingredients of perfection? It doesn’t matter if it’s slow, swingin’, quick-time, bossa or jazz waltz (one of her favorite rhythms). When Maye wraps her intelligence and urbane musicianship around a note and lyric, they somehow emerge as if one is hearing them for the first time. That’s a collaborative effort, I’m sure, between Ms. Maye and her clever musical director/arranger Tedd Firth at the piano.

Medleys seemed to be the music of the night and talk of her three marriages flowed seamlessly into “Get Me To The Church On Time,” a slow, jazzy “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” followed by a swinging, scatting, racing “On The Street Where You Live.”

In between, there’s the soft living room wit that always works in her favor especially if there happens to be a dropped lyric. No one cares because it’s just another endearing quality of honesty. As the lady says, “I’m too old to be humble.”

Maye’s approach to a song is based upon her unique brand of storytelling and this time around she included some contemporary songwriters, i.e., Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman and “Butter Outta Cream” from the current Broadway musical “Catch Me If You Can.” A Fats Waller medley “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now/Ain’t Misbehavin’ and a double entendre “Honeysuckle Rose” were icing on the cake at this feast, followed by Arlen/Mercer’s hot and spicy “Blues in the Night.”

As she closed with Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here” and Jerry Herman’s “It’s Today,” it was evident that marvelous Marilyn Maye continues to be the definitive master class.

Additional accompaniment includes Tom Hubbard on bass and Jim Eklof on drums.

New York, NY - November 29, 2010

Theatre Aficionado at Large

Marilyn Maye: Then & Now

by Kevin Daly

Ever since seeing Marilyn Maye sing a knock-out “I’m Still Here” at the NY Pops Sondheim Bash, I’ve been unable to get the performer out of my mind. I’d heard of Ms. Maye, but I had never seen her or for that matter even heard her perform before that day. Well, I was floored. The iconic anthem from Follies proved the biggest showstopper of the night, given a fabulous rendition by the singer with an interesting new arrangement by Tedd Firth.

Though Marilyn never performed on Broadway, she is forever linked with our musical theatre. Her career as a singer made her a headliner in the top supper clubs and cabarets of the 1950s and 60s. When the supper club market declined, she took on many of the great musical theatre roles like Dolly and Mame in touring and stock productions. She was also the first to record many Broadway songs for RCA – even before the original cast – such as “Cabaret.” She was also a constant presence on TV, particularly on The Tonight Show where she sang 76 times.

Here is Marilyn Maye in 1967 appearing on The Hollywood Palace singing “You’re Gonna Hear From Me” and “Cabaret.”

Cut to March 2010. Here is Marilyn singing “It’s Today” from Mame to promote her cabaret act. She’s still got a powerful instrument and a sharp connection with the music and material. It’s a joy to watch her sing.

New York, NY – March 2, 2010

The Wall Street Journal

Marilyn Maye: In Love Again

By Will Friedwald

Marilyn and Rex Reed
Photo: Mark Rupp

Going to hear Marilyn Maye—who begins a two-week stay at Feinstein's at the Regency March 2—is a bit like attending a wedding where the bride's family and the groom's family have never met. On one side of the room are the Broadway and cabaret people, who tend to like their singing big and theatrical, with a lot of drama and stage presence. On the other side is the jazz crowd, who want everything hip and cool and understated, and will split the scene if anything doesn't swing. Ms. Maye is the only pop-song diva working today who can satisfy both crowds at once, combining the projection and personality of Ethel Merman with the musicality and virtuosity of Ella Fitzgerald.

It's all a matter of timing. Ms. Maye's singing has such relentless drive that she literally rocks your world; so many feet start patting in time that you immediately fear for the building's foundation. In the Maye musical universe, everything swings—even the ballads. She's so hip that basic scat singing is too square for her; she would much rather take a lyric phrase and stretch it into a run of syncopated, chromatic syllables. Even 4/4 swing itself is old hat; instead she likes to convert a familiar song like “Come Rain or Come Shine” into a high-powered 3/4. “I've always loved jazz waltzes,” said Ms. Maye in a phone interview from her home in Kansas City, Mo. The time signature “lends itself to too many songs. It's swinging and yet it doesn't go so fast that you can't deliver the lyric.” One of Ms. Maye's signature showpieces is a tongue-twisting vocal take on Paul Desmond's iconic “Take Five,” which she swings, rather unbelievably, at five quarter-notes per bar—even harder than Dave Brubeck and Desmond (who wrote it).

Marilyn Maye and Michael Feinstein
Photo: Steve Sorokoff

Unfortunately, her professional timing has never been the equal of her musical timing. By the time Ms. Maye—who celebrated her 80th birthday at the Metropolitan Room two years ago—made it to the big leagues, it was already very late in the day for the traditional American songbook. She cut her first album for RCA Records, “Meet Marvelous Marilyn Maye,” in 1965, on the eve of “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” and the Age of Aquarius. “I keep thinking that if I could have recorded earlier, my life might have been very different,” she said. RCA had enough faith in her to release seven albums of mostly standard-style songs in an era of diminishing returns. So did Johnny Carson, who had her on “The Tonight Show” a record-breaking 76 times and famously (on the notes to her 1968 album “The Happiest Sound in Town”) dubbed her the “Super Singer.”

Ms. Maye's first professional experience was as a singing emcee in a kiddie revue every Saturday morning for several years, beginning around 1939, in the Jayhawk Theater of Topeka, Kan. “I introduced all the other little acts, as well as the cartoons and 'The Lone Ranger.' I sang 'God Bless America' more times than Kate Smith.” It was the first of many long runs in her career.

Unlike most singers of her generation, she didn't hone her craft singing with a big band. Instead, she had an extended engagement at a nightclub called the Colony in Kansas City. For 11 years, 10 months a year, she sang there five nights a week. And it was there that she and her pianist and husband, Sammy Tucker (whom she describes as both “brilliant” and an alcoholic), worked out many of her classic routines. Most of the standards on her RCA albums were based on the arrangements she and Tucker fine-tuned in Kansas City.

Marilyn Maye and Steve Sendroff
Photo: Steve Sorokoff

They also cut an album together titled “Marilyn . . . The Most,” which was distributed mainly in Missouri. It was essentially a demo; they were hoping some label would pick it up, but instead it was heard by Steve Allen. He scheduled her for repeated appearances on his prime-time variety show, and the association with Allen led to the RCA contract and eventually to “The Tonight Show” with Carson. Today, Ms. Maye regularly dedicates concerts to both Allen and Carson: “They're both here tonight—they just have better seats.”

Alas, that was precisely the wrong time to launch a career singing jazz and standards; she dented the “Billboard” charts a few times, but never enjoyed a blockbuster hit. (She'll tell you how she turned down RCA's request to do “Strangers in the Night.”) As the support network for her kind of music dried up—the major big-city hotel-based nightclubs folded their tents and silently stole away—she did more and more regional theater (one of her later albums is a one-woman cast recording of Jerry Herman's score to “Hello, Dolly”). Except for a gig at Michael's Pub in 1991 (how did I miss that?), she was barely seen in New York for more than 30 years.

Her current Manhattan renaissance is due to Donald Smith, of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, who booked her in his annual Cabaret Convention, in 2005, and to the Metropolitan Room. “I thought, 'Who's going to show up, eight people?' Then when I got there, they were lined up down to the corner.”

Over the course of seven Metro runs since then, Ms. Maye has become a New York institution for the 21st century. With her powers virtually undiminished at age 82, she reminds me of the charge I used to get when Rosemary Clooney and Mel Tormé were with us (or when I get to hear Tony Bennett live). On her '60s albums, RCA kept prodding her to do vocal versions of instrumental hits—from “Petite Fleur” to “Mr. Lucky” to “Washington Square” and even to “Java”—things that no one else would or could sing. There's no one remotely like Ms. Maye: Her arrangements are generally killer fast—constantly changing tempo and key, and sometimes even taking side trips through other songs before coming back again—yet she makes them sound as natural and easy as “Jingle Bells.” On any given night, at the Metro (and surely at Feinstein's) the room is packed, not least with dozens of singers. Ms. Maye always thanks them for being supportive, but clearly they're there for their own benefit— to learn how it's done.

Mr. Friedwald writes about jazz for the Journal.

Minneapolis, MN – February 17, 2010

Star Tribune

It's the divine Miss M, cabaret's Marilyn Maye

By Jon Bream

Photo by Tom Wallace, Star Tribune

Cabaret star Marilyn Maye, 81, finally lit up a Minneapolis stage after winning New York praise for the past four years. Working with Liza Minnelli’s pianist, her own drummer of 48 years and a pickup Minneapolis bassist, she interpreted standards her own way.

In her overdue Minneapolis debut, the Kansas City songbird turned on her Midwestern charm and class.

If the Catskills were in the Midwest instead of upstate New York, Marilyn Maye would be the queen of the Catskills.

The Kansas City songbird is lovably old-school, a cabaret singer's cabaret singer, all brassy, belting and Borscht Belt jokes. And she sings standards like she's lived them.

Making her entrance Wednesday night from the audience, Maye hit the stage at the Dakota Jazz Club like a Kansas tornado. She was Bea Arthur, Ella Fitzgerald and Liza Minnelli poured into spectacular sequined pants and a stylish satin blouse, topped with her Angela Lansbury hairdo with all its Aquanet. And she had the crowd before she even sang a note.

“That's my eulogy,” she said of Dakota proprietor Lowell Pickett's effusively glowing introduction. “Thank you, sweetheart. All those compliments and a check.” No rim shot was necessary. She just broke into “This Song Is You.”

Her Twin Cities debut was overdue considering that Maye has lived in the Midwest for eight decades, appeared on “The Tonight Show” 76 times (with Johnny Carson) and earned riotously rave reviews for the past four years for her regular gigs in New York City. Her most spectacular review, though, may have come from Ella Fitzgerald who once called Maye “the best white female singer in the world.”

That's a billing that's nearly impossible to live up to at any age — let alone 81. Maye's voice has deepened (from what I remember seeing her with Johnny). Her instincts, taste and style were always right during Wednesday's 85-minute opening set, whether belting, scatting or reaching for high notes -- but her notes weren't always true. That's a cavil because Maye — a beloved blend of show-bizzy vivaciousness and Midwestern friendliness — can really sell a song.

Cherry-picking from the catalogs of Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Ray Charles and Steve Allen (who discovered her on a songwriter's demo), she sang about love, loneliness and heartbreak. Even though these standards were overly familiar, Maye did them her way. Unlike Frank Sinatra, she didn't cry in her bourbon on the pre-Breathalyzer classic “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” but rather approached last call with a shot of fortitude and a fire chaser. She reworked a Charles classic as a swingin' “Hallelujah, I Am Loving Him So,” complete with a new intro (“I wanna sound like Ray but I'm too white”), a little dance and a big leg kick. “Just for a Thrill” became a delightful duet with pianist Billy Stritch, as they harmonized on the “shoo-ba-doos” and nailed the ending.

Stritch, who often works with Minnelli, headed Maye's terrific trio, which included Jim Eklof, her drummer of 48 years (from Des Moines), and Gary Raynor, her bassist for the night (from Minneapolis) who was so impressive that she complemented him almost as effusively as Pickett had done for her. In both cases, the high praise was warranted.

San Francisco, CA - September 17, 2009

San Francisco Examiner

Marilyn Maye swings and sings a musical master class

By Robert Sokol

Singer Marilyn Maye
Photo: Pat Johnson Photography

Looking like the best possible combination of Elaine Stritch grit and Mitzi Gaynor glam, Marilyn Maye is back in town doing the thing she has done so fabulously well for over 70 years for the rest of this week at The Rrazz Room at Hotel Nikko.

Taking the stage in a flash of scarlet satin and diamond clusters, there is no warm-up. She just hits the opening out of the park with an aptly chosen pair of tunes - the Kern/Hammerstein “The Song Is You” and Dory and André Previn's “You're Gonna Hear From Me” - which sets her message of the evening.

“I've been doing this a few years,” Maye, 81, jokes early in the set, noting nostalgically that her last major San Francisco appearance was at the long-shuttered Venetian Room as part of a Fairmont Hotels tour.

She then kicks off a tribute to Steve Allen by remembering the break he gave her early in her career and notes not his well known television credits, but the fact that he wrote over 8,000 songs in his lifetime. Maye then offers one of the best (“This Could Be The Start Of Something Big”) and one of her favorites (“I Love You Today” from the extremely short-lived Broadway musical Sophie, as in Tucker).

Working the nightclub circuit of clubs large and small from the '60s to the '80s, Maye played a lot of what she jokingly referred to as “upholstered sewers.” Frank Sinatra, leader of the pack for her kind of entertainer, would have called the next movement “broads in bars” as Maye moves expertly through a series of wounded woman classics. In her superb notes, Murray Grand and Elysse Boyd's “Guess Who I Saw Today?” becomes a piercing, clear-eyed and elegantly-phrased deposition of betrayal and Billy Strayhorn's “Lush Life” is a wise and passionate testimony, whose only flaw is a seemingly lily-gilding vocal coda that diminished the well-paced impact of the song.

It is evident that Maye has a healthy respect for lyrics and her crisp, clear delivery - whether a belt or a whisper - lets the listener savor the story a songwriter wants to tell. A triplet of Johnny Mercer lyrics told the arc of a relationship gone wrong, starting with the romantic “Summer Wind” and ending with “One For My Baby” and showing Maye has considerable acting chops to back up the still powerful voice. More of this skillful delivery was in evidence in a series of songs associated with Ray Charles, including a wonderfully clear reading of Eddy Arnold's 1955 hit “You Don't Know Me.”

A fantastic Cole Porter medley benefits greatly from a brilliant arrangement that allows Maye to playfully interact with each of her three musicians without bogging down into the ubiquitous and sometimes interminable instrumental solo spots that are part of the nightclub jazz set standard. A chestnut like “I Get A Kick” feels fresh and new and Maye gets masterful support from New York-based pianist Tedd Firth, the Bay Area's Dan Feiszli on bass, and drummer Jim Eklof who has been with Maye for 47 years.

The evening has other gems and Maye saves the best for last. James Taylor's “The Secret Of Life” is a lovely learn-this-lesson ballad that takes on a special poignancy when delivered as simply and artfully as Maye does, more potent still when informed by the unspoken history evident in her very being.

Overall, the evening is a fresh and breezy ride, a cozy chat with your best new friend (or, of you're very lucky, an “Old Friend” like those referenced in the Stephen Sondheim song that is part of the show). It's a party really, which is what Maye wants it to be. At the same time it's a master class in vocal performance and required viewing for any aspiring singer. It's been over a decade since the lady has graced a local stage. Grab this chance while you can and let's hope she does not make us wait too long for her next offering.