[Dixielandjazz] Wish I'd seen this revue.

[Steve Barbone]

Lee Wiley was a fascinating woman and one of Eddie Condon's favorite female
singers.  

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Music Review | 'Why Lee?'
A Singer With the South in Her Soul and Jazz in Her Heart

NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDEN - November 5, 2007

Listen to almost any recording of the Oklahoma-born 1930s jazz singer Lee
Wiley, and you will hear the sultry, honey-dripping voice of a
Southern-accented forerunner of the young Peggy Lee.

What you will not hear in the revue ³Why Lee?: A Musical Scrapbook About Lee
Wiley,² a tribute that concludes a five-night engagement tonight at the
Metropolitan Room, is a singer who captures more than a distant echo of
Wiley¹s allure. Lois Walden, one of the show¹s three performers, comes the
closest because she conveys the right wanton attitude. But in songs like
Wiley¹s signature, ³Anytime, Anyday, Anywhere,² her voice wobbles when it
wants to caress. 

If Ms. Walden and Paul Greenwood, who doubles as the show¹s (very good)
pianist, are average singers at best, its third member, Barry Kleinbort, is
a nonactor who can¹t sing and should have remained behind the scenes. In
abbreviated skits that attempt to recreate dramatic moments in Wiley¹s life,
he is as stiff as a butler announcing visitors in a 1930s movie.

By mentioning Wiley¹s fondness for Scotch and men, the show implies she led
a wild, dissipated life, but it is too polite to go any further. And the
performers point out more than once that solid biographical information on
Wiley is hard to come by. Her stormy marriage to the pianist Jess Stacy is
mentioned almost in passing.

When the revue exhausts its skimpy biographical information on Wiley, it
loses its train of thought and turns its attention to her longtime married
lover, the composer Victor Young. Young¹s hit song ³Golden Earrings²
inspires an inept sendup of the 1947 movie of the same name starring Ray
Milland and Marlene Dietrich that is as cringe-inducing as it is extraneous.

³Why Lee?: A Musical Scrapbook About Lee Wiley² ends tonight at the
Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, Flatiron district, (212) 206-0440,
metropolitanroom.com.