Michael Garin & Mardie Millit
Hey, Look! It’s Michael & Mardie
(SHOVELARM Productions)
September 16, 2015
Reviewed by Victoria Ordin for Cabaret Scenes
The first release of husband and wife Michael Garin and Mardie Millit kicks off with a high-energy “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” (Louis Prima), setting the tone for this eclectic, witty, and occasionally melancholy collection of standards and original songs. Garin is equally at home with jazz, blues, and ballads, while Millit’s voice has a purity at times evocative of Dinah Shore and the ballsiness and vulnerability of Elaine Stritch.
Hey, Look! It’s Michael & Mardie is well-conceived. Garin’s dazzling “Habanera” (Georges Bizet), the album’s only instrumental track, precedes a heartfelt rendition of “Little Girl Blue” (Rodgers & Hart; arranged by Billy Stritch), a simple, poetic song one rarely hears performed.
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It’s the kind you long to hear sitting by yourself in the wee hours at a piano bar sipping a martini: “No use, old gal/You might as well surrender/Your hopes are getting slender/Why won’t someone send a tender blue boy/To cheer a little girl blue.” Sad, yet oddly comforting, compassionate lyrics.
But whether the two are camping it up in “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” (Bobby Troup), with clever wordplay (“Rand McNally/Ayn Rand”) that grew out of their improvised banter at a show, or “I’m My Own Grandmaw” (Moe Jaffe/Dwight Latham), a dizzying, hilarious enumeration of bizarre marriages which culminate in the singer’s improbable status, or they’re singing from the heart in Garin’s own “It Doesn’t Happen Twice” or Stephen Sondheim’s “Sorry-Grateful,” the pair have undeniable chemistry.
“Douchebag at the Bar” (Mardie Millit) is priceless. Any girl who’s spent considerable time on Manhattan barstools at upscale restaurants has run into the condescending Harvard MBA eager to prove he’s not really a douchebag, but rather a good guy with a sensitive side by virtue of having taken “one class of poetry.” In the view of this Bulldog, Yale MBAs (which don’t typically lead to Wall Street) are completely different. The song is particularly resonant for me and, I imagine, other English majors, because this breed of douchebag always seems to think poetry can be mastered in a single course, unlike economics, a “serious subject.” To such a girl, this sarcastic little ditty is like a salve.
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Other noteworthy tracks include “Some Enchanting Evening” (Rodgers & Hammerstein), a rendition of “I’ll Take Romance” (Ben Oakland/Hammerstein) worthy of Eydie Gormé, “Historia de un Amor” (Carlos Eleta Almaran), and “Volver” (Carlos Gardel/Alfredo le Pera).
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Trained in opera, Millit sings as confidently in Spanish as in English.
