Lea DeLaria
Lea DeLaria Live in Concert
Bridge Theatre London, London, U.K., November 18, 2018
Reviewed by Helen Theophanous for Cabaret SCenes
Lea DeLaria seized attention with every song. Opening with “Boys Keep Swinging” (David Bowie/Brian Eno), her gentle, almost introspective, interpretation immediately drew the audience into her world. She related how Bowie himself had promoted her album House of David on his website by encouraging his fans to attend her gigs and tweeting his approval. “Fame” (Bowie/Carlos Alomar/John Lennon) followed in a declamatory dramatic style with energetic scatting and a funky piano solo from Jannette Mason.
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“I Love the Life I Live” (Willie Dixon; arr. DeLaria) had DeLaria commanding the stage and energetically conducting the band as they all soloed in true jazz style. A hilarious sequence followed as she placed a battery operated “personal fan” around her neck to cool off. However, it had the effect of heating up the proceedings to fever pitch encompassing feminist themes and rage at political figures. The
humor was enhanced by the fact that the performance took place on a stage set for the current play. The heavily beamed ceiling, representing a ghoulish loft with dozens of macabre-looking dolls hanging from it back-lit in red, brought to mind a Hammer Horror production, which, of course, DeLaria used deliciously to her advantage.
Only DeLaria could make a full-scale drama out of her sing-along which followed as she beat the audience into submission on the “thin plot” of “My Cat in the Well” (Billy Moll/Dick Robertson/Terry Shand; arr. DeLaria). Starting with Endea Owens on bass, “Let’s Dance” (Bowie) had DeLaria immediately inhabiting the song’s character, and her passionate treatment of it was moving and exciting in turn as she scatted. Her vocal agility and range, together with changes in vocal timbre and play on words, enhanced the mood. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, the high sustained guitar notes with a free feel on bass and tom-toms introducing “Star Man” (Bowie) continued to an exciting tempo change, and DeLaria gave her all to the character.
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Mason’s piano solo and a major drum solo from Sylvia Cuenca added to this amazing performance and the audience showed its appreciation. DeLaria can change the mood with just a single note, and she demonstrated this as she gently told the story of “Star Man” with her haunting arrangement of a cacophony of apparently random sounds. “Swinging Sweeney” (Sondheim; arr. DeLaria) in contrast with its strong rhythm gave us DeLaria at her most powerful in the song that began her journey towards five Warner label jazz albums. Genuinely amazed at the pleas for an encore, these great jazz musicians tore into the feminist blues standard “Why Don’t You Do Right” (Joseph McCoy), with DeLaria adding her own suggestions to the original list demanded in the song. The hint of a Broadway production on the horizon was ecstatically welcomed, and further news of this long-overdue event is eagerly awaited.
No jazz singer has the dramatic tools that DeLaria has at her command which, combined with a complete understanding of jazz and a phenomenal voice, makes her a truly individual and great talent.
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Upcoming dates:
December 8: Oh F*!k It’s Christmas—Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
January 19, 2019: Orange Is the New Black’s Lea DeLaria Live in Concert: McGlohon Theater at Spirit Square, Charlotte, NC
January 25 & 26, 2019: Jazz at the Bistro, St. Louis, MO
March 9, 2019: Purchase College, Purchase, NY
leadelaria.com
