First things first. So there are no misunderstandings; the man can sing.

With a remarkably unencumbered ease at just about any point over an enviable wide range, he seems effortlessly to give total muscular support to an energetic truly relentless forward thrust of sound. Whether vibrato (think Mathis) or legato with smooth natural transitions, from chest to head to falsetto his placement is spotless. It’s almost too powerful, too easy.

Though one feels an almost guilty pleasure in all his grace notes and glottal agility, it is the very dependability of his voice that keeps his toes a few inches farther than he must get from the edge of the precipice for the thrill of vocal vulnerability. What’s missing is a sense of musical chance-taking that can carry the listener to vertiginous ecstasy, leave him momentarily suspended, then reach out and snatch him back to solid ground. Perhaps Marcus’s daring in taking that extra step could be accomplished by trying a turn or two straight from the lyric and eschewing now and then the vocal pyrotechnics he toss off like strings of beads at Mardi Gras.

Which brings us conveniently to “Brazil” (sambazooka of a performance), “I Second That Emotion” (please sir I want some Mo’town), Billy Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” (surely as good a time as any to pay close attention to what’s being said as it is being sung). Each a standout in a continuous string of ... ah, there’s the rub yet again. All those pretty beads strung together but where are the solitaires, the gems that stand alone? Surprise! a bonus a capella “I’ll Be Seeing You.” Not battling the band (which in most instances on this recording has given as good as it got), neither a revelation nor reevaluation. Simply the story.

Noah Tree
Cabaret Scenes
January 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org