Betty Buckley may be best known for her Tony Award-winning theater role as Grizabella in Cats, and for her award-nominated performances in Triumph of Love and Sunset Boulevard.  But she has also been acting and singing steadily in Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theater, in films and on television, including in a Bravo documentary on her life, Betty Buckley in Concert and In Person. And she has been recording. Her newly released CD, titled Quintessence, and her Betty Buckley 1967, released a year ago, form the backbone of her return engagement at Feinstein’s at Lowes Regency. Attractively matronly today, with an appealing husky voice, she brings a strong jazz leaning – but occasionally a too-frantic pace – to songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, the Gershwins, Schmidt and Jones, McCartney and others. She is moving when she slows down to deliver Abbey Lincoln’s “Throw It Away” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”  She’s backed by a fine jazz quintet, led for the early part of her engagement by Christian Jacob, then by Kenny Werner, with Billy Drewes starring throughout on reeds.

Betty Buckley runs through February 24, with a different program of theater songs for late shows on Friday and Saturdays.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
February 8, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org