[Dixielandjazz] Steve Tyrell at the Cafe Carlyle

[Stephen G Barbone]

If you are visiting NYC this next month or so you may want to take  
your main squeeze to the Cafe Carlyle to see Steve Tyrell with his  
band and a program called "I'll Take Romance". It is American Songbook  
with a touch of New Orleans and although modified for average  
audiences of regular folks, surely OKOM. The venue is stunning also.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband.


Songbook Standards Flavored With Barbecue in an Escargot Cafe
NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDEN - November 16, 2020


A decade ago who would have thought that a Texas growl would supplant  
la-di-dah elegance at the Café Carlyle as the holiday season  
approaches? That growl belongs to Steve Tyrell; the lofty airs were  
those of Bobby Short, the much-missed jazz piano man who died in 2005.

The difference between Short and Mr. Tyrell, a Burt Bacharach protégé  
with one foot in New Orleans, is the difference between escargots and  
barbecue, between the Upper East Side of Manhattan, of which Short  
became a symbol, and Houston, where Mr. Tyrell grew up. Yet both  
succeeded in creating an intimate party atmosphere in the cafe,  
singing standards in their particular styles.

You could say that Mr. Tyrell, who began his sixth consecutive season  
at the Café Carlyle last week, makes the great American songbook safe  
for everyday people. Popular standards are carved into thick slices of  
R&B-flavored pop, each phrase a man-size hunk of beef, seasoned with  
soul and jazz and served hot by a musical chef with the gregarious  
charm of a macho Santa Claus.

His new show, “I’ll Take Romance,” is mostly a compendium of songs he  
has performed in earlier seasons. The most prominent exception was Joe  
Seneca’s “Talk to Me, Talk to Me,” which Little Willie John made into  
a top-20 hit in 1958. Mr. Tyrell delivered it with a gruff bluntness  
that was very different from the delivery on Mr. John’s fervent gospel- 
tinged hit record.

The show was mostly business; Mr. Tyrell’s customary monologues about  
his life and times were drastically trimmed. Vocally, his New Orleans  
side was de-emphasized to showcase the smoother balladeer under the  
rough-hewn surface. The hint of a sob that inflected his rendition of  
“Come Rain or Come Shine” took the song to an uncharacteristically  
introspective place.

Mr. Tyrell has an excellent band — Quinn Johnson on piano, David Finck  
on bass, Bob Mann on guitar, David Mann on flute and sax, Kevin Winard  
on drums and Jon Allen on keyboards — with Bob Mann and David Mann (no  
relation) filling in the spaces with subtle guitar blues licks and  
stealthy flute obbligatos. That Mr. Tyrell’s take on “The Way You Look  
Tonight,” the show’s closing number, is probably the most familiar  
version to audiences under 50 showed how time moves on.

Steve Tyrell appears through Dec. 31 at the Café Carlyle, 35 East 76th  
Street, Manhattan; (212) 744-1600, thecarlyle.com.