[Dixielandjazz] Rebecca Kilgore reviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Channeling Judy Garland, Serenely
by Stephen Holden
New York Times, August 2, 2012
It's difficult to imagine two more disparate sensibilities than the singer Rebecca
Kilgore and the subject of her new show, "The Jazzy Side of Judy Garland," now playing
at Feinstein's at Loews Regency. Ms. Kilgore, who is based in Portland, Ore., has
an invariably light touch. Wearing a half-smile of pure enjoyment, she sails from
one number to the next like a butterfly in a field of flowers.
Garland, as we know, had little of the serenity that seems hard-wired into Ms. Kilgore.
In Garland's hands a sad song took on a tragic edge; a joyful one became a manic
romp. Everything she sang was infused with breathless urgency and excitement. Ms.
Kilgore's steadiness is the default position through which ripples of exhilaration
emerge. When she is singing with Harry Allen, the tenor saxophonist who leads her
quartet, they convey the pleasure of longtime friends at peace with the world doing
what they love most.
At Tuesday's opening night show Ms. Kilgore found her way into the essence of Garland
signature hits like "The Boy Next Door," "The Trolley Song" and "The Man That Got
Away," delicately inserting hints of Garland's theatricality like pinches of spice.
Although Ms. Kilgore is 63, she found enough of the wide-eyed girl played by Garland
in "Meet Me in St. Louis" to evoke a mature woman affectionately looking back on
her naive younger self.
Stripped of melodrama and its pace quickened, her minimalist "Man That Got Away"
changed from a cry of anguish into a wistful remembrance of enduring some emotional
hard knocks. It came from a place of safety. "Friendly Star," from the 1950 movie
"Summer Stock," was translated into a bossa nova in which her excellent quartet,
whose other three members include Rossano Sportiello on piano, Joel Forbes on bass
and Chuck Riggs on drums, injected quotations from Jobim's "Waters of March."
The show's most euphoric moment was a double-barreled fusion of Peggy Lee's "I Like
Men" (a famous Garland-Lee television show duet) and a scorching "I'm Just Wild About
Harry" in which Mr. Allen's playing more than justified the song's title.

-30


-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

At the Irish wedding reception the D.J. yelled...
"Would all married men please stand next to the one person who has made your life
worth living."
The bartender was almost crushed to death.