Jazz in July

Guys and Dolls Play the Greater Loesser

92nd Street Y, NYC, July 20, 2017

Reviewed by Annamaria Alfieri for Cabaret Scenes

Jane Monheit and a team of guys and dolls of jazz gave their audience Frank Loesser’s hit songs, sometimes hot, sometimes cool, always engaging. The proceedings opened with a swinging instrumental of the title song of the musical Guys and Dolls with Bill Charlap (piano), Sean Smith (bass), and the stellar Carl Allen (drums). Monheit and John Gordon, alto sax, next took the stage and broadened the evening’s scope with a hot and sexy “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” followed by “I’ll Know,” where Monheit raised goose bumps with her sweet voice and perfect phrasing. Her pianissimos, and the fugue-like accompaniment by Charlap, turned the familiar song into a jazz aria.

“If I Were a Bell” brought the rest of the guys and dolls to the stage: The splendid Renee Rosnes (piano), Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), and Gary Smulyan (baritone sax).

Other highlights of the evening: the hottest possible “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” where Jensen and Smulyan splendidly delivered a brass version of the familiar give-and-take conversation—“I really can’t stay… / But, baby, it’s….

”

Rosnes and Charlap turned “No Two People” into a piano four-hand tour de force, and then, with all hands on deck, the ensemble let rip the fastest, coolest ever “On a Slow Boat to China.” Allen’s drum solo put the wind in everyone’s sails.

The penultimate elegant driving “Luck Be a Lady” led into the finale—“Heart and Soul.

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” Loesser wrote this, every child’s piano solo, with Hoagy Carmichael. The six guys and three dolls of Jazz in July delivered it as you have never heard it before, making it sound like a swinging classic. Heart and soul, indeed.