Jane Monheit, Jim Caruso, Billy Stritch
Hollywoodland: Songs from the Silver Screen
October 23 at 7:00 pm
October 24 at 6:o0 & 8:30 pm
Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center
361 Symphony Park Ave., Las Vegas, NV
702.749.2000
Here’s Peter Haas’ review of this show when it played NYC:
Many of the American Songbook’s most beloved songs were created for the movies. Some two dozen of these were given a sophisticated, merry musical outing at Birdland this Thanksgiving season, thanks to the talents of Jim Caruso, Jane Monheit and Billy Stritch—each a solo star and now, melding their music, creators of a highly professional, smartly paced and sweet-spirited evening of delightful music.
Backed throughout by Neal Miner on bass and Rick Montalbano on drums, the trio brought a collection of favorite movie songs back to life. Among them: “You Are My Lucky Star” and “You Ought to Be in Pictures,” with the three performers harmonizing; Monheit’s moving, crystal-clear “The Boy Next Door,” “Good Morning” and a Disney medley of “Whistle While You Work” and “Give a Little Whistle”; the threesome in a merry and upbeat “Gotta Have Me Go with You,” from A Star Is Born; the 1920s’ “Avalon,” featuring Monheit and Stritch in an arrangement by Aaron Weinstein; and numbers from The Wizard of Oz, including Monheit’s yearning “Over the Rainbow” and Caruso’s wistful “If I Only Had a Brain.”
A highlight of the evening was a medley of songs that had been introduced by Fred Astaire. Among them: “Dancing in the Dark,” in a simple, powerful piano-and-singing solo by Stritch; a jazzy “Cheek to Cheek” by Monheit; a warm “I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man” by Caruso; Stritch and Monheit with “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” and the trio on “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” The finale, in a nod to Thanksgiving’s customary weather (and despite that evening’s unusual mildness), “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”
Hollywoodland, with all its on-stage spontaneity and fun, was clearly thoroughly professional in concept and performance—and a high spot in the season’s cabaret shows.
