When Sandy Stewart sings a love song, slowly and simply, with her throbbing, husky voice, it's as though she were lighting a new passage into the piece, inviting you to discover both the emotion underlying it and the craftsmanship that fashioned it. When Bill Charlap accompanies her on the piano, with his sparkling, jazz-like arrangements, the results bring familiar standards to new life. So it is in their new show, Hello, Young Lovers, playing for two weeks at the Oak Room, starting, appropriately, on the eve of Valentine's Day.

The songs are familiar ones - by Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart, Dietz and Schwartz, Warren and Dubin, and others - but given fresh elegance by the combined talents of Stewart and Charlap, mother and son. As an interlude, Charlap solos, dressing three songs from The King and I in new, contemporary arrangements - an exhilarating mini-concert in itself. Stewart and Charlap would be ideal for long runs at Algonquin weekend brunches, much as the hotel has done successfully with Barbara Carroll.

Sandy Stewart and Bill Charlap continue at The Oak Room, Tuesdays through Saturdays through February 24.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
February 13, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org