[Dixielandjazz] [Tradjazz] Lanie Kazan

[Rich Howard]

Or Greek (see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding")



On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Stephen G Barbone <
barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Not much time left to see her at Feinstein's however, don't miss her if you
> ar in the area. She is definitely among the last of the red hot mamas.
>
> Although I am 7 years older than Lanie, we attended Hofstra College at the
> same time (mid/late 1950s) after I got out of the Army. Back then, she sang
> a time or two with The Beale Street Stompers led by Kenny Butterfield
> (trumpet). The rest of that front line was me on clarinet and Al (Jim)
> Winters on trombone.
>
> Lanie is a wonderful singer of the songs we all love and a wonderful lady.
> Like the article suggests, she also plays comedic roles wherein she is the
> stereotypical Jewish (or Italian) mother.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
> www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband
>
>
> Over-the-Top Style Meets Some Good-Hearted Sense
> NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDEN - Oct 8, 2010
>
> As Lainie Kazan recounted her life at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency on
> Wednesday evening, it was as though the turning point in her career in the
> mid-1960s happened only last week. That was when she was an understudy for
> Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” and waited more than a year to step into
> the role of Fanny Brice. As she recalled, the day came, the press was
> invited, and Ms. Streisand appeared at the last minute.
>
> Ms. Kazan, now 70, still exudes a volcanic willpower, even though she had
> to be helped on and off the stage, and the middle range of her enormous
> voice has thinned. In recent years she has developed a second career playing
> stereotypically domineering mothers with a good-hearted comic zest. Her
> sense of humor carries over into her singing, which is fearlessly histrionic
> with a strong element of self-parody.
>
> When she dips into a growling contralto, Ms. Kazan is almost a vocal double
> for Harvey Fierstein, and you have the sense that she relishes the drag
> queen, mama lion element of her stage personality. Singing the Sophie Tucker
> standard, “I’m Living Alone and I Like It,” she inserted the line, “I’m just
> a king-size Lollobrigida.”
>
> Her show, in which she is backed by a pop trio, touches all the sources of
> her style of over-the-top melodrama, with Judy Garland leading the pack and
> Tucker coming in second. Ms. Kazan acts her songs intensely, but the drama
> comes from the outside in. When she throws her head back at the end of a
> number, she is miming the role of diva. In “The Trolley Song,” the shouted
> words “bump, bump, bump went the brake,” became the song’s comic center.
> “The Man That Got Away,” with emphasis on the phrase “but fools will be
> fools,” was freighted with more tragedy than even this ultimate torch song
> can comfortably carry.
>
> But calculated excess, outlandish as it may appear, is Ms. Kazan’s stock in
> trade. Among the handful of performers who deserve to inherit Tucker’s
> sobriquet, “the last of the red-hot mamas,” she is high on the list.
>
>
> Lainie Kazan continues through Saturday at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency,
> 540 Park Avenue, at 61st Street; (212) 339-4095.
>
>
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