Babalu-Cy!, Greg Purnhagen's welcome salute to Desi Arnaz, is Simply Delicioso. Like Mojitos, Bacardi rum, and cigars, music is a Cuban signature. Those sizzling rhythms inspired the conga, rumba, and musicians like Gloria Estafan, Perez Prado, and Desi Arnaz, the handsome bandleader best known as husband and television co-star of Lucille Ball. In Babalu-Cy!, a well-crafted show heated by Latin lustiness, Purnhagen, a Cuban charmer himself, illustrated with enticing interpretations, passionate vocals, sensuous dance movements and selective, articulate patter.

Purnhagen does not miss a rumba beat in channeling the spirit of old Havana into the Metropolitan Room. Arnaz was a bandleader, and Purnhagen is backed by seven musicians, including a powerful punch of trombone, trumpet and saxophone. He includes much of the Arnaz songbook, like, "Babalu!," playing the bongos with the spirit, if not the finesse of Arnaz; a straw hat is smoothly tilted in a jaunty "Cuban Pete;" the mucho up-tempo "Tico Tico" brings everyone into the fun and romance, and Purnhagen also proves compelling in his ballads, like the seductive "The Island" (Ivans and Martins/Bergmans).

And of course, there is Lucy. Lucy appears in the second part of the show, after patter about Arnaz's background and his flight from Cuba to Florida during the Batista revolutionary days. Famed "Rumba King," Xavier Cugat, became his music mentor and taught him about business, which later brought Arnaz great success when he bought the studio where TV's greatest television sitcom was filmed.

Arnaz met Lucille Ball while appearing in the film version of Broadway's Too Many Girls, when he earned the name, "Oomph Boy," on and off the stage. Lucy and Desi shared a romance that is the stuff love songs are made of, like Schwartz, Dietz and Comacho's "You and the Night and the Music." It culminated in television legend when Lucille Ball stipulated that Arnaz, her husband, must co-star with her in I Love Lucy. When they later divorced, Purnhagen reflected Arnaz' heartbreak in a poignant "It Never Entered My Mind."

When Purnhagen begins "By the Waters of the Minnetonka," a god-awful female voice from off-stage zooms memories back half a century to those legendary I Love Lucy episodes. The voice here belongs to Georga Osborne, who may not look like Lucille Ball but is talented enough to inhabit your "favorite redhead's" spirit.

Ole!, as well, to gifted musical director/pianist David Cook who provides intriguing arrangements, and the caliente band.

The Metropolitan Room features Greg Purnhagen in Babalu-Cy! - The Art Of Desi Arnaz on July 18, 25 at 7 pm.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
July 11, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org