[Dixielandjazz] Bill Charlap & Mom - American Songbook Show

[Steve Barbone]

IMO, this is a performance that list mates in the NYC area should go see. I
saw Bill Charlap and his mom, Sandy Stewart the last time they performed at
the Algonquin and they were superb. Their impact is such that the audience
hangs on their every word/note in complete silence.

Reminded me of the old cabaret days (40s-50s) in NYC and venues like Number
1 Fifth Avenue. But then, I'm a hopeless romantic.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Taking Life Philosophically, One Heartache at a Time
NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDEN - January 17, 2008

Sandy Stewart and Bill Charlap turned the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel
into a meditation room on Tuesday evening. As Ms. Stewart, a sphinxlike
oracle planted on the club¹s tiny platform stage, sang ³My Ship,²
accompanied on piano by Mr. Charlap, this Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin standard
with its Freudian imagery of a woman¹s love hoarded like a priceless
treasure, assumed a Homeric dimension. Ms. Stewart became Penelope patiently
awaiting the return of Odysseus, while Mr. Charlap¹s gleaming piano hinted
at the rubies, jam and spice under guard.

Tuesday¹s show was the opening night of ³Make Me Rainbows,² this mother and
son¹s fifth engagement at the Oak Room. Each year their collaboration
deepens in intensity and insight. The silence that attends a Stewart-Charlap
performance is akin to that of a prayer meeting. Their communication is so
finely tuned, you hold your breath and hang on every note and vocal
inflection. 

Ms. Stewart and Mr. Charlap carry the romantic metaphors of the American
songbook into a realm where songs become the pop music equivalent of
philosophic texts to be deciphered for the truths they embody. As the
ceremony proceeds, Ms. Stewart, dispensing with the customary nightclub
patter, croons in a quiet womanly alto with scuffed velvet edges, humming
long-held notes while taking songs at a pace so slow it suspends them in
time. 

Lyrics about romantic disappointment open up into more probing expressions
of loss and resilience and the will to continue. ³Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,²
³When Your Lover Has Gone,² ³Last Night When We Were Young,² ³In the Wee
Small Hours of the Morning.² Each was spun into a personal expression of
mourning and the gathering of strength after another setback, the
implication being that this is the inevitable direction all lives follow.
You lose, accept and go on.

In Mr. Charlap¹s precise and intuitive pianism, tempos can turn on a dime,
as he supplies exquisite punctuation to his mother¹s vocal phrases. Each
note rings with intention. Like Ms. Stewart¹s, Mr. Charlap¹s apparent
emotional reticence serves a deeper purpose; it makes self-dramatization in
the face of reality seem cheap.

Despite its solemnity, ³Make Me Rainbows² is uplifting. After all seems
lost, what is left? As Irving Berlin puts it, ³I Got the Sun in the
Morning.² Singing this song from ³Annie Get Your Gun² at a measured pace and
wearing a half smile, Ms. Stewart exalted the simple pleasures of taking a
deep breath, gazing into the sky and being alive.

Through Jan. 26 at the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th Street,
Manhattan; (212) 419-9331, algonquinhotel.com