Frank Dain & Guests: Happy 80th Birthday, Johnny Mathis

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Frank Dain & Guests

Happy 80th Birthday, Johnny Mathis

Metropolitan Room, NYC, October 25, 2015

Reviewed by Rob Lester for Cabaret Scenes

Cabaret-Cares-Johnny-Mathis-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212On September 30, 1935, President Roosevelt dedicated the Hoover Dam, but even a powerful dam couldn’t hold back the force of talent of other September 30th events.  On that same night, musical and theatrical history was made as Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway, with songs that have been part of entertainment fabric ever since. Some fated to be celebrities when they grew up were celebrating their birthdays that day, likely at parties: Little Angie Dickinson was blowing out the candles (all four of them) on her birthday cake, Truman Capote was turning 11, and the day let drummer Buddy Rich reach his 18th birthday, though he’d been performing since the age of 18 months in vaudeville.  Born that September 30, 1935 and still with us eighty years later, were two singers of popular songs, both signed to Columbia Records to be produced by Mitch Miller, singing some tracks arranged with sentimental string charts by Glenn Osser and others.  One was Jill Corey, who retired for many years after marrying a baseball player from the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The other had a longer and still flourishing career, although he might have had an athletic career of his own had he pursued another offer when he was scheduled to begin work as a 19-year-old singer at Columbia; he had the chance to be involved with the trials at the Olympics, but schedules conflicted, and he chose music.  That was lucky for us all.  The guy’s name:  Johnny Mathis.

To honor him at 80, a hearty and heartfelt handful of material he recorded was lovingly sung at a cabaret concert at Metropolitan Room on October 25.  A packed house cheered the Manhattan Mathis mini-marathon in a generous set that also served as a benefit for the charity Help Is on the Way Today, which raises money for projects to help children and teens with HIV/AIDS.  All the singers volunteered their time and talents.

In the last few years, when Frank Dain introduced vocalists and their songs, it’s mostly been spinning their recordings, as the regular guest of David Kenney on the latter’s Sunday night WBAI radio show, Everything Old Is New Again, heard online at wbai.org, and it’s in conjunction with the singers reviewed in the current or upcoming magazine that is the print companion of this website you are reading, Cabaret Scenes magazine, for which he is editor-in-chief. Sitting and chatting with the Cabaret Scenes’ media partner and fellow cabaret enthusiast, they discuss the singers and songs. Every now and then, Frank entering a nightclub is not to be in the audience (or to judge Don’t Tell Mama’s singing contest, as he did all summer), but to be on the stage and present vocalists and to be one of them himself. So, when he was asked to raise his voice in song and support for the charity Help Is on the Way Today for one of the regular Cabaret Cares concerts, he thought he’d invite a bevy of guests and sing with some of them. And, since the date was very close to the milestone 80th birthday of his favorite male vocalist, Johnny Mathis, saluting the icon and reprising items from the set list of his past solo Mathis show seemed like a smart decision. Obviously, the approximately 100 people who filled the Metropolitan Room to hear him and his guests and support a worthy cause thought so, too. All the singers thought so, too. (To fatten the take, many audience members also bought strings of raffle tickets for prizes which included the CDs of the singers du jour).

A reviewer writing up a show that features his own editor? Some might look askance (not sure what direction that is in) or tremble at the thought or at least find a bit of interest in the potential conflict of interests. But we’re the only print magazine and website dedicated just to cabaret and we only have one editor—who was singing long before the publication came to be—so it’s maybe not so outlandish or self-promotional. Besides, Frank isn’t plugging an upcoming show and the event was a one-nighter for charity with other artists. And no trepidation need I have, as I have heard him sing numerous times, particularly his Mathis repertoire, and know quite well he does it quite well. In fact, long before I’d been invited to join the writing staff here, I’d admired Frank Dain’s voice before I’d seen him perform and before we met. I’d purchased his CD out of curiosity at a record store in Greenwich Village. It had a nice selection, including one of my mother’s favorite songs. (I was raised well.)

The repertoire at this Cabaret Cares show was just the biggest record successes of the man whose first Greatest Hits album had been on Billboard’s top-sellers charts for longer than any other album—a record-breaking record.

Frank-Dain-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Of course, the audience would expect some of these and most of the signature pieces did remain in the domain of Dain (“Misty,” “The Twelfth of Never,” “Chances Are,” “It’s Not for Me to Say”—this last one enhanced by the smart inclusion of the little-known verse—and his most effective solo, “A Certain Smile.”) All had been in the solo show by our gracious host, who is no Johnny-come-lately to the Mathis repertoire, having loved his stylings for many years. The comfort zone, ease, and affection were evident and the J.M. approach to some was respected and noted without any being clone-like. Longtime Musical Director/pianist Kathleen Landis and he made sure to find a happy medium between dogged faithfulness and modernizing/reinvention. The elegant Landis approach is a particularly graceful and attentive one, sometimes cerebral, always classy, and with a touch or more of classical influences. While the original Mathis charts could be string-laden and blatantly hit-seeking commercial, even soupy and sentiment-lade, these lovely Landis/Dain dressings are thoughtful and musically mature.   They coax the emotions out, make us think, and suit Frank Dain’s creamy voice which has a smiling shyness and friendliness that match those same qualities in his personality on and off stage. Even when arrangements get complicated, his phrasing is natural and conversational, as if he’s sharing feelings and secrets in his own words.  No tricks.  No show-off stuff.  He seems to be in a heavenly state of euphoria, enveloped in an ethos of love for songs so closely woven in the legend of a superstar of whom he’s a dyed-in-the wool fan.  The voice now is delicate and tenderly spinning out words like the most careful of spiders with silky threads that glow, fragile but well built.  Like Mathis, he’s more afraid of being ultra-romantic than Donald Trump is afraid of controversy and confrontation.  At the very end of couple of numbers, he revealed more vocal strength than we heard at any other point in the hushed, gossamer balladry.  While it may have been more molasses than is to the taste of some who like spice and spunk, the crooning, it was a swooning voyage through Dreamland’s Lovers’ Lane and Memory Lane thoroughly thoughtful thoroughfares.

A casual observer with a tendency to jaded snarkiness might wrongly guess that Frank pulled rank to hog the hits. But those of us who are regular cabaret attendees (or those with good retention of content who are regular review readers) would recognize he wasn’t the only one recycling material from past acts.   Others were plucking numbers that were indeed done by J.M., but not numbers he introduced or are most associated with him. Indeed, some of the giant hits, except  “Misty” …..  which was saved for last, are still well remembered, but rarely included in cabaret artists’ sets. Thus, it is doubly enjoyable that Frank brought those along, as things like “A Certain Smile” are too good as songs to be so rarely heard. Anyway, in decades of recording, Mathis covered both mega-standards and then-current hits that would be standards, so most any singer of the Great American Songbook has one of those in regular rotation or tucked away, ready to be brought out again.

Eric-Comstock-Barbara-Fasano-Shoulder-Season-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano chose “Two for the Road.” They favor and savor this one, which indeed fits this pair like a glove—make that a pair of glove—for these married “glove birds” who now “travel through the years, collecting precious memories, selecting souvenirs.” as they warmly and convincingly inhabit the Leslie Bricusse words. Mathis has gotten to the number in live appearances and on TV, but this movie title tune is not one of his most usual choices. In a tour of the U.K. with its composer, Henry Mancini, the medley of his movie songs, includes the melody as the only instrumental-only item.

Stacy-Sullivan-Since-You've-Asked-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Scintillating Stacy Sullivan had scored with the dramatic “Wild Is the Wind” in her solo show and combined forces with host Dain, who’d also soloed with it in his act. Their combining forces, as they now shared this number, was especially fortuitous. I, for one, found it more potent as a twosome than either of their solo renditions. Something special happened on stage when the whole was more than the sum of the parts, and the song took on a special resonance.

Lennie-Watts-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Director Lennie Watts, saying his preference of doing a number from one of the icon’s several Christmas albums was nixed by the host as being too much, too little, too early (to paraphrase a hit not on the bill) settled for a mellow, slightly funky groove which was the first track of a low-profile 1988 album called Once in a While. He said he was amused that the ballad-loving Dain immersed in an avalanche of Johnny’s ballad-heavy song lists considered this one, “I’m on the Outside (Looking In)” to be an “up tempo” item. Everything is relative, right? But savvy Mr. Watts brought vitality and visceral emotion to his well-calibrated performance that invigorated the oldie once creamily crooned by Little Anthony & The Imperials as well as Mathis and others. Shattering the glossy veneer with a brisk dose of believability, it got a real-deal feel. Programmed late in the evening, its fierce frustration served as a very effective splash of strong whiskey after some fruity sugary cocktails of romantic idealism.

Marcus-Simeone-The-Truth-About-Don't-Tell-Mama-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Two other cabaret regulars who had done their own tributes to the man of the hour were on the bill. Marcus Simeone was dynamic as he brought percolating high energy to “Brazil,” accompanied by his regular musical director, Tracy Stark. Their early-on appearance may have been a necessity of scheduling realities for one or both of them, but Marieann-Meringol-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150this South American trip at a fast-paced clip extolling the wonders of that land might have been better placed—and more welcome and effective—mid-way to break up the slow-paced dreamy love songs.   And……  Mesmerizing Marieann Meringolo, Mathis maven (who shared a personal anecdote about persistence and finding a sweet, neat, deceitful way to meet the man backstage at his concert) chose “Something New in My Life,” which is hardly something new in her life. I first heard her do it at a live radio broadcast, years before my own decade-long reviewing stint. She loves it so much, she told us, that she’s included it in a few of her shows, such as one dedicated to its lyricists, Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Likewise, Mathis had his version of it on his 1993 CD collection of their work. Like many of their ballads, it’s a collaboration with composer Michel Legrand, written for a film (1984’s Micki and Maude) and has a lush and yearning melody line. As the last guest in a longer-than-typical cabaret show (albeit casually paced), the hushed audience was rapt with attention, matching the chanteuse’s laser beam focus of a performance which ended in an emotional and musical climax. She received some of the most prolonged and enthused applause of the night.

Tanya-Holtl-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Tanya Holt joined the dapper Dain for “The Last Time I Felt Like This,” another movie lyric by the Bergmans (with Marvin Hamlisch’s music, for 1978’s Same Time, Next Year, after Paul McCartney’s submitted title song was rejected). This higher-profile piece is more Mathis-associated as his duet vocal, with Jane Olivor, was heard on the soundtrack and their recording; they also performed it on the Academy Awards broadcast when it was nominated as best original song for a film, though it lost the award to the disco hit “Last Dance.” It’s been kept alive by the singers, even though their live performances of it find one of them singing along with just the recorded voice of the other. The Dain/Holt combo was game, she seeming more at home with its commercial pop sensibilities, though its candy cane sweetness didn’t really bring out the best in either. As a more familiar trademark, perhaps the original version’s architecture was followed too closely to achieve real sparks. Tanya Holt is a sensational singer largely absent from the local cabaret scene of late, and I’d been looking forward to seeing and her sizzle and glow at full flame. It was good to hear her special timbre and have her loving touch as part of the banquet, nonetheless. I see the logic in the choice and match, but I just wish there was also room for her to solo and soar on something richer.  Nonetheless, the different flavor was probably wise in the big picture.

Kurt-Peterson-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Kurt Peterson’s appearance singing “Maria” was a rare treat and resplendent with the kind of magic and excitement that make us as audience members sit at the edge of our seats, knowing we are experiencing a master with history. He’d been Tony in a major New York City revival of West Side Story, and for fellow fans of musical theater firsts, his having been the first to sing some other Sondheim words—in the original production of Follies as Young Ben—is legendary status enough. But add to that his having been featured in the original casts of Stephen Schwartz’s The Baker’s Wife and Jerry Herman’s Dear World and the fact that he could make the hair on your arms or the back of your neck stand on end with his current vocals and the one song alone made this a night to remember. But, remember, too, that it was Mathis who put “Maria” on the map for pop music record buyers way back when, and it remains something that still makes his audiences cheer in concert as he aces and navigates the Leonard Bernstein melody and exultation that is love at first sight. Such is the case when hearing the vibrant and emotion-charged Peterson triumph. “Say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.”

Kathleen-Landis-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150A gossipy tidbit about Mathis’ love life, known by Frank Dain’s personal friend/reliable source added something different to the by-the-book bio that rehashed oft-told tales such as how Johnny got his contract (it’s in liner notes of an album and in many articles, even Wikipedia).  But one more mention of his start with a decidedly jazz-colored album was the perfect segue into a chance for pianist Kathleen Landis to take the spotlight to show her own jazz chops.  Taking the cue from a cut on that first album, she was impressive on a personalized take on “Caravan.”  Indeed, she was in her element all night during the long concert, accompanying singer after singer, looking especially lovely and glowing.  Her accompaniment as well as her big grin and twinkling eyes were evidence of her easy rapport with dashing Dain when he mentioned that both he and his hero had bushy Afros in the 1970s, and she produced proof: a photo which was his first professional pic as an actor.  She gleefully prowled the stage, making sure everyone saw it, and Dain, in a refreshing flash of humor, held it over his face, referencing the iconic moment in A Chorus Line.   In any case, digging up some illuminating points or quotes from Mathis, guarded and private though he has been, would have added to the contexts of the songs’ histories.  Instead, our Fan Club President made sure to let us know that the guy had recorded a certain song (like “A Certain Smile”) for a certain project and much other talk time was given over to gushing over guests and giving gracious mentions of their gigs which are upcoming.

Jeff-Harnar-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_150Jeff Harnar sprinted up to deliver a show tune whose title included the honoree’s name, but hardly a description of either’s singing range: “Johnny One Note.”  Jeff was jubilant, tongue in cheek and tonsils out with the many notes soaring, especially, of course, that ace-in-the-hole “one” big note.  It was one more big note for one big night for one very good cause.

To quote a lyric that’s been graced by Mr. Mathis: “And I say to myself, ‘It’s wonderful, wonderful…oh, so wonderful.'”

Rob Lester

2015 is native New Yorker Rob Lester's eighth year as contributing writer, beginning by reviewing a salute to Frank Sinatra, whose recordings have played on his personal soundtrack since the womb. (His Cabaret Scenes Foundation member mom started him with her favorite; like his dad, he became an uber-avid record collector/ fan of the Great American Songbook's great singers and writers.) Soon, he was attending shows, seeking out up-and-comers and already-came-ups, still reading and listening voraciously. He also writes for www.NiteLifeExchange.com and www.TalkinBroadway.com, has been cabaret-centric as awards judge, panel member/co-host, and produces benefit/tribute shows, including one for us.