From haughty looks I’ll turn aside and mortify my pride. (A sampler needlepointed in 1774). But I digress—we’re here to talk about a more recent CD sampler, a pretty patchwork in which Grace Cosgrove and all can indeed take pride. So let’s see how well this is stitched together.

Ms. Cosgrove introduces the musical grouping with the Hoagy Carmichael & Johnny Mercer classic “Skylark” with compelling simplicity and sensitivity and attention to every note. Maria Moncada is second on stage: a complete change of pace with a bold, brassy hip-slapping delivery of Irving Berlin’s “I Got the Sun in the Morning.” Next up is Nesha Ward who infuses the Anthony Newley & Leslie Bricusse “Feeling Good” with a sultry throaty nervous tension that generates electricity.

Grace amusingly introduces Wendy Russell as “leaving for Disney World” but Russell’s straightforward vocal on “A Change in Me” (Alan Menken/Tim Rice) more suggests she could be Broadway bound. Though the Bernard Ighner “Everything Must Change” melody is distractingly reminiscent of “All in Love Is Fair,” Clarice Mazanec manages to keep attention coming back to her shading, phrasing and well-thought-out delivery. Adam Alexander provides emotive comic relief with “Bacon” (Mary Liz McNamara). Tha-tha-that’s all, folks. The well-written Dick Gallagher/Mark Waldrop not-so-funny “Laughing Matters” is plaintive, well and wistfully presented in bittersweet fashion by Tanya Holt.

Let’s just say Delivery Girls (Tracy Stark, April Henry, Mary Lee Carey and Amy Carey) deliver Gary Jackson, Carl Smith & Raynard Miner’s “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher” and this is a good time to tip a high-hat to musical director/pianist Don Rebic. Tracy Stark herself follows with her own penmanshipped “Find My Strength” with a fabulous fusion of country/soul. Ripped.

Irving Berlin again: jazzily represented by Lynne Halliday with a breathy, cute and cuddly, syncopated “Let Yourself Go.” Miles Phillips nails Wicked’s “Wonderful” (Stephen Schwartz) in a crowd-pleasing show biz razzamatazz build to a big, hands-in-the-air finish. And there’s Tom Hubbard on bass keeping up with, and time for, Mary Foster Conklin as she easily swings and scats cooly hot as Hades with “Devil May Care” (Bob Dorough & Terrell Kirk). Hard not to be a sucker for chansons français and Olivia Stevens doesn’t make it any easier to break free with her true-to-the-genre throaty noble tristesse of the iconic Marguerite Monnot/Edith Piaf breast-beating anthem “Hymne à l’amour” (you’ll know it when you hear it).

Who’s better at presentation than Lennie Watts? His offhand, sly, self-effacing set-up rat-a-tat-patter is smoothly followed by a perfectly phrased and paced “That’s Life” (Kelly Gordon & Dean Kay) tied with”Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” (Ray Henderson/Buddy G. DeSylva/Lew Brown). And the winner is...

Grace Cosgrove, who packaged all this talent and returns to wrap it up with a hauteur-free, lightly frivolous “Que Sera, Sera” (Jay Livingston & Ray Evans).

Noah Tree
Cabaret Scenes
September 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org