Press and Reviews
Metropolitan Room, New York, NY – September 9, 2008
CABARET WORLD
Tedd Firth, music director & pianist, Tom Hubbard, bass, Jim Eklof, drums
by Joe Regan Jr.
There are crown princes, dames, high priests, high priestesses, kings, and queens in the realm of pop and jazz and cabaret. Some girls and women do look like goddesses, but Marilyn Maye in her current show "Love on the Rocks" at the Metropolitan Room demonstrates that she is, without peer, the Supreme Goddess of Music. Girls fifty years younger should have her chops! And all music lovers should not miss this extraordinary talent, now eighty years young, performing at her peak.
Handsomely attired in a black sequined jacket and black slacks with round framed earrings that match the glitter in the jacket, Maye makes an entrance from the audience and bursts forcefully into Bachrach-Davidʼs "What The World Needs Now". Her pipes give powerful vigor and dramatic sonority on the familiar lyrics. It make the song seem as it were written for the 21st Century. Without a pause Maye launches into a Cole Porter medley. Beginning with a muted "Looking At You", sung first with a slow beat and great punctuation by her long time drummer, Jim Eklof, then bursting into a bluesy second chorus, and then segueing into "I Concentrate On You", the confessional "I Get A Kick Out of You" sung rapidly and with a funny gesture on that once censored line of the lyric, and then playing up to the men ringside on "Itʼs All Right With Me", shrugging her shoulders as she begins "Just One of Those Things", followed by a sexy "Iʼve Got You Under My Skin" and a very adult and very sexy "All of You:", going where no one else would dare go with Porterʼs racy lines like "Iʼd love to take a tour of you" and yet retaining her stature as a genuine lady! She demonstrates that she has more energy than not only her contemporaries but every young singer in the business! Itʼs an amazing beginning to an act that makes you wonder how she will top such a spectacular showcase.
She follows the Porter medley with a beautiful ballad by Barry Manilow entitled "Paradise Cafe". In the midst of singing she tells everyone that the Metropolitan Room is a Paradise cafe for her. She has played in many Paradise cafes in her life, including her first gig as a teenager in Des Moines, Iowa. All it takes is great sound, light, a great pianist and wonderful people who like music. She states that she will not take requests on this show. What she has discovered is that those who request songs always request sad songs...they are happiest when drinking and crying! She goes right into one of her staples, Murray Grandʼs "Guess Who I Saw Today" but this time she adds more dramatics and nuances and heartbreak, especially on her wailing last notes as she points directly at the man in the song! Without pause, she sings the verse and chorus of "In The Wee Small Hours", giving special meaning to the longing in the lyrics for a missing lover, and merges right into Alec Wilderʼs "Iʼll Be Around" empathizing the bitterness and heartbreak in the familiar lyrics. Maye makes it seem as if you never have heard the standard before.
Maye sighs on the verse to "When Your Lover Has Gone", moving into a heart-rendering chorus and merging it with "Lover Man" on the finish. Sitting against the cradle of the piano, she begins a "Lush Life" that is sometimes sung softly, sometimes with rage, and finishes with a big wail, especially on the last phrase of Strayhornʼs masterpiece "and there Iʼll sit and rot with the rest/of those whose lives are lonely too" and she adds repeatedly "like me, like me" in mournful anguish that has a shattering effect.
Announcing that this woman is determined to go on, Maye gives us a "Something Cool" that is Pirandello-like in its shifts between memory, illusion, and reality, sometimes directed to one man in the audience. "Something Cool" is followed by a revealing reinterpretation of a forgotten gem, the title song from the Cy Coleman-Michael Stewart musical I Love My Wife. In Mayeʼs version she sings in the character of "the other woman", singing of a classic back street love affair with a married man. Additional special lyrics alter the title to "He Loves His Wife". A wistful version of Hugh Martin-Ralph Blane "Evʼry Time" follows but then you get "Just For A Thrill". "Just For A Thrill" starts slowly, and softy, then breaks out into an explosive full big band sound that caused the audience to applaud wildly in the midst of the song. This audience gave Maye a spontaneous standing ovation in the middle of the show!.
Changing pace Maye sang a dramatically torchy "Mean To Me". There was a great piano solo by Firth on the break then Maye came back with the rest of the band with a big strong jazzy finish. Continuing, she broke into an angry "Everything Iʼve Got Belongs To You" (Rodgers & Hart) that was better than the classic Lena Horne version, pointing the nasty lyrics at several men in the audience.
Maye announced this woman is in recovery. "Nobodyʼs Heart" also by Rodgers and Hart was sung plaintively and softly. Then she roared out the Arlen Kohler classic "When The Sun Comes Out", dramatically punching up the finish. Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fieldsʼ "Pick Yourself Up" was begun as a slow, sweet survival song. It began with only percussion accompaniment, then had a great Tedd Firth riff on the break, and Maye returned full force with her arms waving in the air as if at a faith healerʼs tent show spiritual revival.
Mayeʼs introduction of her superb trio was full of genuine love and affection. The final song in the set was James Taylorʼs "Secret of Life". Rosemary Clooney used to sing this song in her act but Mayeʼs dramatic and gentle version, directed to the audience, made it sound like a new song. There was a spontaneous standing ovation. Bringing on stage one of the young men in the audience, we learned Maye had met him in the park Sunday night while waiting for a hamburger. He turned out to be a German from Salzburg and when she asked him if she could stay with him if she came to Salzburg he charmingly agreed.
She closed with the song she calls her mantra, Jerry Herman's "Hereʼs Today", complete with high kicks (she did it twice for the young man from Salzburg) getting everyone in the audience at one point to wave their hands in the air as if at a rock concert. No other person in cabaret or concert can perform like this legendary woman. Sheʼs alive and well and still kicking over her head with those great gams! Long may she wave. And no one should miss this engagement.