What an exciting evening San Francisco based jazz vocalist Lua Hadar treated us to at the Iridium in a performance celebrating her new CD Twist. When Hadar sings in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or French, you don’t have to know the language because she communicates dramatically what she’s singing about, and makes the listener as involved in the message of the song as she is. Here is a big voiced, classically trained singer who has lived all over the globe and knows how to interpret lyrics in several languages. The program presented Hadar with her music director and pianist Jason Martineau and a jazz group of New York’s finest: Tom Hubbard on bass, Scott Latzky on drums, Joe Passaro on Latin percussion, and Dave Pietro on reeds. After a samba rhythmed "Soon It’s Gonna Rain," Hadar sang a funky "Floating Where I Have Never Been" in both French and English and then switched to a bossa nova version of the legendary Italian song "Estate" which included a stunning sax solo by Pietro.

A stunning highlight of the evening was the anti-war "No Borders," an original song written by Hadar, Candace Forest and Hadar’s music director Jason Marrineau. She also sang another original by Forest, a ballad entitled "Your Face Flew By My Window" which was sheer beauty. Every selection was dramatically on the nose, including a Latin version of Joni Mitchell’s "All I Want" and a beautiful blend of "Hi Lilli Hi Lo" with the Francis Poulenc theme with lyrics by famed French playwright Jean Anouilh "Chemins de l’Amour." Later she did a stunning version of "Siboney" by the Latin Gershwin, Ernesto Lecuona, with wild work on the bongos by Passaro. She rocked on the closing number, the Pink Martini "Una Notte A Napoli (One Night in Naples)."

She is also a gorgeous redheaded woman and her physical presence and body language remind one of the great Latin Abbe Lane at her peak. The evening was pure pleasure!   

Joe Regan, Jr.
Cabaret Scenes
May 10, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org