A Variety Pack of Talent
Like critics at a film festival who sample a little bit of a great many movies by ducking into theaters to catch bits and pieces of screenings, we have recently dropped in to an eclectic mix of shows. While we can’t, in all cases, vouchsafe the quality of the acts, we can tell you about the performers. It doesn’t take an entire act to know if a singer has the goods; they may or may not put on a great show, but you can tell right quick if they’re capable of it.
Pam Tate is plenty capable of a killer act. She has a powerful bluesy voice that boasts round, sweet tones coupled with a wail — a rare combination! We caught the first half of her show at Danny’s Skylight Room and found ourselves particularly impressed with Tate’s performance of a song by Lina Koutrakos and Dan Gross called “Love Grows Here.” So does talent. We hope to catch her last show at Danny’s — Thursday, June 26 at 7pm — in its entirety.
On another recent night, we caught the last half of Maureen Kelley Stewart’s show, also at Danny’s, called a Pocketful of Bing! Way too modest, Ms. Stewart; it was more like a great big trunk full of Bing, as in a trunk full of wonderful songs. Unlike the Bing debacle at the FireBird last year, Stewart’s act has her singing Crosby’s signature songs all the way through in an affectionate tribute. The section of the show that we caught was rough around the edges but, nonetheless, sincere and charming. And there are two more chances to see it: Tuesday, June 24 at 7pm and Thursday, June 26 at 9:15pm.
Ruben Flores is a comer. We saw his entire show at Danny’s and there is no doubt that this is a young man with potential; you’d be wise to remember his name. Flores has a warm, full-bodied tenor. He sings with passion and he makes a real effort — often successful — to interpret lyrics. In this case, it wasn’t the act that was rough around the edges, it was Flores himself. A good-looking guy, he apparently feels the need to strike sexy poses, but that gets him nowhere. When he learns to underplay the Latin lover role, he’ll be far more devastating.
The act is structured to keep Flores singing, rather than have him deliver too much patter in his halting English. His program includes a particularly wide variety of numbers, ranging from Latin to showtunes to pop. His voice can handle them all but he’s still learning how to communicate in a cabaret setting; he has mannerisms that get in the way of his artistry. We subsequently saw him get up and sing at that Brigadoon of piano bars, Jim Caruso’s Monday Night Cast Party. In that far more challenging atmosphere, singing a serious ballad, Flores was exceptional. The man is learning fast. And you might want to move fast also: He has two more shows left at Danny’s, on Wednesday, June 25 at 9:15pm and Monday, June 30 at 7pm.
Finally, we parked ourselves at Don’t Tell Mama for “The Arrangement.” This was part of the first weekend of the “Summer in the City” seminar series that Lennie Watts and Lina Koutrakos are running. As they did last year, they asked five different musical directors to arrange the same song without consulting each other. The result was five wonderfully different versions of the Styne-Comden-Green standard “Just in Time.” The musical directors — Steven Ray Watkins, Barbara Anselmi, Tracy Stark, John McMahon, and Alex Rybeck — gave of their time and intelligence, talking about both the art of musical directing and the business of it, as well. “The Arrangement,” which is open to the public, takes place again with a brand new set of musical directors on June 19th at 6pm at Don’t Tell Mama.
