Spencer Day: The Palm Cabaret

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Spencer Day

The Palm Cabaret, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, November 29, 2014

Reviewed by John Amodeo for Cabaret Scenes

Spencer-Day-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212You can resist, but you will inevitably succumb to the charms of Spencer Day. While he may come from the finger-snappin’ jazzier Harry Connick, Jr.

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/Peter Cincotti side of cabaret, rather than the heart-on-his-sleeve Michael Feinstein/Phillip Officer realm, he combines aspects of both into a cohesive whole that is surprisingly moving as he strives to entertain.

In this late November outing in the tropical paradise of Puerto Vallarta, Day put together an autobiographical show of his journey from troubled childhood to well-adjusted adulthood that in lesser hands could have been tedious at best. But his program of covers, mixed with his clever and often profound original compositions, perfectly fit the armature of his journey, shedding light on his feeling of entrapment brought up Mormon in small town Utah, his teenage awareness of being gay, his planned escape, and the trials and tribulations of his post-escape life in L.A. It was often hard to tell when his easy patter segued smoothly to song, as both equally illuminated critical aspects of his odyssey.

Surveying the mostly vacationing gay audience of Puerto Vallarta’s premier entertainment nightclub, The Palm Cabaret, as he entered the stage, the mischievously grinning Day exclaimed, “Welcome to Provincetown,” immediately warming up the room. Such gentle and self-deprecating humor happily crept into his entire program, sweetening his stories and songs with delightful personality.

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Day’s warm baritone voice serves his interpretations well, with only a hint of vibrato, typical of jazzers. But add to that his expressively arched eyebrows, and Pepsodent smile that competed with the ivories of his keyboard, and you have a charismatic performer who led us willingly on his journey. It included, of course, several songs of escape, such as the old folk song “Gotta Travel On,” and a pairing of Day’s original compositions, “Joe” and “Vagabond,” the latter of which is a very personal song about the search for happiness, forming the crux of his show. The cherry on top was a tour-de-force 27-song medley containing a joyful wish list of escape destinations (“As a kid, I used to draw pictures of places with palm trees.”) with 14 key changes, that brought us from “Bali Ha’i,” “Anatevka,” “Gary, Indiana,” and “Oklahoma” to “Over the Rainbow,” “Somewhere That’s Green,” and “A Whole New World.” Examining the winsome lyrics of the last three, you get the idea how badly Day wanted out of Utah.

As typical of escapes, the grass is always greener. His escape to L.A. was a bit of a misfire, in spite of the fact that he still remains there 15 years later. “If you are ambitious and not smart, you escape to L.A.,” he says with world-weariness.

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He covers this phase of his life with some of his best compositions.

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“Movie of Your Life,” with such clever lyrics, as “It’s just a flicker, then it’s over,” lamenting life’s head-spinning pace. “Lost In L.A.,” and the “Ghost of the Chateau Marmont,” a mournful song that Edith Piaf would have sung well.

Peppering the program were a few simple divertimentos, like “Let Me Entertain You” (Styne/Sondheim), which he used to tell us “the triplet was illegal in the 18th century because it was considered too sexy.” The evening’s comedic bull’s eye, another Day original, “Mary Lincoln’s Last Night Out,” a plea from Mrs.

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Lincoln herself, with such mind-tickling irreverent lyrics as “I never said a word/and went to Gettysburg/and listened to your stupid speech/You unified the nation/by skippin’ our vacation/How ’bout emancipatin’ me.

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But it is his coming of age, and coming out, that proved to be the emotional high point of the show. A story of coming to Mexico at age 13 on an exchange program, where he fell in love (unrequited) with his exchange student, Ishmael, segueing poignantly into the Peter and Gordon hit, “A World Without Love,” written by Paul McCartney.  The title song from Day’s 2013 album The Mystery of You brought a maturity to his coming of age, with a lyric worthy of a James Bond film: “Turn yourself in/you’ll never win/I’m gathering the evidence/I’m searching for a clue/I’m on the case/and you can’t escape/slowly I’m uncovering the mystery of you,” sung with appropriately noir-ish private-eye swagger.

A talented pianist, Day could have spent all his time behind the keyboard but, instead, spent at least half the show behind the mic stand, allowing himself to be freer physically and emotionally, which was a joy to experience, especially on the dark “Shadow Man,” where he caresses the mic seductively with his sensuous hands. The guitar and bass accompaniment gave an appropriate Latin flair to the evening.

Knowing his audience, he added in two Mexican pieces: “Solamente Una Vez,” a bolero song sung in perfect Spanish, eliciting cheers from the entirely Mexican staff at the club, and a local favorite, “Cucurrucucu Paloma,” a lush ballad sung with full commitment.

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John Storie on guitar and local favorite Javier Nunex on bass added delicious Latin flavor, especially to the rhythmically fascinating “You Go to My Head,” sung with such heartfelt sincerity, I had to wonder if it was the martini or the song that left me light headed at the end.

John Amodeo

John Amodeo has been a contributing writer to Cabaret Scenes since 1998, has written cabaret articles for Theatermania.com, was a cabaret journalist for Bay Windows (1999-2005), and then for Edge Publications (2005-present).  John has been producer, assistant producer, and host for several Boston-area cabaret galas over the past 25 years, and produced Brian De Lorenzo’s MACC-nominated recording “Found Treasures.” His liner notes grace several cabaret CDs. John holds degrees in landscape architecture from Cornell and Harvard Universities, and has been practicing landscape architecture in Boston for 35 years, where he is a partner in his firm. John was a founding member of the Boston Association of Cabaret Artists (BACA), and served as BACA Vice President for 2 terms. He is happily married to his favorite cabaret artist Brian De Lorenzo.