Oklahoma-born KT Sullivan and the late, Vienna-born Greta Keller share a few traits. Both their careers have embraced theater, concerts, revues and recordings; both have been successes in major metropolitan venues but both retained the charm of their home towns – for Greta, Vienna, for KT, Boggy Depot. Thus KT’s recent tribute to Keller, at the intimate Neue Gallery, was a lovely, warm-hearted  fit – and another example of KT’s increasing versatility and seriousness as a performer.

Singing in an attractive, low voice range, KT mixed numbers by European writers (such as Sholom Secunda, Charles Trenet and Edith Piaf) – sung both in their original languages and in English translations – with songs from Keller’s American cabaret career, including works by Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill and Noel Coward, as well as Anna Sosenko’s French/English hybrid, “Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup.”

Jon Weber, at the piano, contributed quietly colorful accompaniment, like bubbles in champagne.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
March 20, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org