Alexa Ray Joel

Café Carlyle, NYC, February 24, 2015

Reviewed by Joel Benjamin for Cabaret Scenes

Alexa Ray Joel has great genes. The daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, she has some of her mom’s beauty and her dad’s musical talent. Elegant in a shimmering floor-length gown accessorized with an old-fashioned feather boa, she stood on the stage of the famous Café Carlyle and held her own for an hour, singing a program that included several of her own quite competent compositions and covers of songs by Randy Newman, Charles Strouse & Lee Adams and others.

Her Las Vegas-lite stage manner seemed a bit artificial in such a young artist with no need to hide behind any artificiality. She constantly invited her audience to clap along with her and even applaud her every move to the keyboard, which she played with skill, despite joking about her shortfalls. Her own songs were sincere and sung in her purring, edgy voice. “Sorry to Say” was about her devastation after her first love left her, and “What the Hell Is Wrong with Me?” mocked her (very much imagined) defects.

She took on “How Lovely to Be a Woman” from Bye Bye Birdie giving it a kittenish sexiness, personalizing some of the lyrics. “Let Me Entertain You” (Styne/Sondheim) also was slightly re-written to better express her starry-eyed feelings at being at the Café Carlyle.

Carmine Giglio on piano also sang back-up. His arrangements made fine use of Garo Yellin’s cello skills, too.