Even in South Africa, ol' chum ...We started 2014 off on the right note at the Second Annual Jazz & Blues Weekend at the Theatre on the Square in Sandton where we saw Cat Simoni perform her new show, Cat's American Songbook.
It was basically a Steinway and a singer performing her interpretation of The Great American Songbook. The classic combo for a Cabaret. With a classic repertoire from legends like the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein and Cole Porter. Many of the songs were first introduced by Fred Astaire on a big screen version of New York in black and white musicals or performed live on The Great White Way by the likes of Ethel Merman.
And it was a throwback to one of our favorite forms of New York entertainment over the years.
From the 70's cabaret revival with the hipsters downtown at Reno Sweeny's to its heyday with the swells uptown. Julie Wilson, Mary Cleere Haran, Steve Ross, Karen Akers, Andrea Marcovicci, and Barbara Carroll at The Algonquin's Oak Room. Michael Feinstein at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency.
Legendary Bobby Short at the Cafe Carlyle.
Just the songs without the extraneous story. They're good enough to stand alone.
Many of New York's Cabaret venues are unfortunately gone now. Reno Sweeny's ... The Oak Room ... Feinstein's. All closed. To hear anything even close to The Great American Songbook live anymore in New York you have go to a Broadway revival. Or to Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room in the Time Warner Building (which always seemed to me to be more like a museum than a cabaret supper club.)
Yes, the Cafe Carlyle is still open, but it cost between $155 to $205 to see Woody Allen play clarinet there on a Monday night! Crazy! We used to pay $25 at Michael's Pub to see him play and we thought that was a lot in the day. There was that pesky two drink minimum too.
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| a madcap 50th birthday party @ The Oak Room w Andrea Marcovicci |
Just the songs without the extraneous story. They're good enough to stand alone.
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| @ Feinstein's just prior to its closing in 2012 |
Yes, the Cafe Carlyle is still open, but it cost between $155 to $205 to see Woody Allen play clarinet there on a Monday night! Crazy! We used to pay $25 at Michael's Pub to see him play and we thought that was a lot in the day. There was that pesky two drink minimum too.
But these things have cycles. Cabarets - like 70's style, swing dancing, and the slow food revolution before them - will return to ol' New York someday too. In the meantime, Cat Simoni will be performing the Ella Fitzgerald songbook in May at the Theatre on the Square in Sandton. And we'll be there!
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