[Dixielandjazz] Marilyn Maye Returns

[Steve Barbone]

If in the NYC area and you like  American Songbook and brassy jazz singers,
you might want to see Marilyn Maye in her triumphal return to the Cabaret
Scene. At 70+, it seems you can go home again. Her trio backup is excellent
also. NY Cabaret the way it used to be with an update.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Mix Broadway and Jazz, Then Stir With ¹50s Flair

NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDEN - March 24, 2007

³Marching-around-the-breakfast- table songs.² That¹s Marilyn Maye¹s amusing
and accurate description of some of the almost-hit singles she recorded in
the 1960s for RCA Records: numbers like "Step to the Rear," a peppy parade
song from the all-but-forgotten 1967 show "How Now, Dow Jones?"

Revisiting such material with an affectionately raised eyebrow is the least
of what Ms. Maye, a Kansas-born jazz belter with a big streak of Broadway in
her soul, does in her one-woman show, ³An Evening With Marilyn Maye,² at the
Metropolitan Room.

Last October Ms. Maye returned to the New York cabaret stage for a
triumphant one-night stand after a nearly 15-year absence. The atmosphere at
Thursday¹s packed opening-night performance of her return engagement (14
shows through April 1) could be described as one of discreet pandemonium.

Ms. Maye, now in her mid-70s, combines Broadway brass and jazz scooby-do
with such a natural feel for both that they become twin styles that you can
hardly tell apart. Her voice is in remarkable shape: she folds Anita
O¹Day-style swing and chesty Margaret Whiting-like belting into a musical
jelly roll with a bittersweet Judy Garland filling.

With Billy Stritch, New York cabaret¹s most valuable supporting player, on
piano and harmony vocals; Tom Hubbard on bass; and Jim Eklof on drums, she
has put together the kind of full-throttle nightclub act that flourished in
the 1950s and ¹60s but has gone the way of the sort of TV variety show that
boosted her career.

³The Steve Allen Show² catapulted Ms. Maye to a recording contract. And a
segment of her act is devoted to Allen¹s songs, including ³This Could Be the
Start of Something Big,² a clever, garrulous war horse that has fallen into
semiobscurity. She has also resurrected ³Guess Who I Saw Today?,² a period
piano-bar monologue delivered by a woman to her cheating husband as a
tribute to its composer, Murray Grand, who died on March 7 at 87.

At Thursday¹s show, Ms. Maye swung hard with ³Time Out² and ³Mountain
Greenery,² singing in tight two-harmonies with Mr. Stritch, and slammed
Jerry Herman¹s ³It¹s Today² out of the ballpark.

Reining in her power, she delivered a languid ³Lazy Afternoon² that took the
song straight to dreamsville. It was a perfect song, she commented, after
singing it perfectly.


³An Evening With Marilyn Maye² continues through April 1 at the Metropolitan
Room, 34 West 22nd Street, Flatiron district; (212) 721-6500.