Michael Mott
Michael Mott & Friends
The Green Room 42, NYC, November 27, 2021
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
Singer/songwriter Michael Mott is certainly a practitioner of many styles and forms of music, from pop/rock to both dramatic and comedic musical theater. He brought all of these to his somewhat overstuffed program at The Green Room 42, which included two guest singers and a five-person back-up band. Peppered with his good-humored and often ad-libbed, commentary (at one point asking his in-attendance Mom to “keep it down” and then later apologizing to her with obvious affection), he proclaimed “I don’t do subtlety well!” Very true. Not that this is a bad thing.
After a rocking version of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!,” one of several Christmas-themed songs that popped up during the show, Mott offered up a set of his pop/rock songs utilizing his full on-stage band as well as back-up tracks. It certainly served up a lot of high-energy music and sound, but the various electronic effects and lack of spontaneity served to distance the charming performers from the audience. Also, the material was not as interesting as what was to come. However, it seems that “The Impossible,” as delivered by guest star Matt Bloyd, has become a popular tune for line dancing all over the world.
Richer experiences came with Mott’s singing of a medley of two Italian classics that he had skillfully blended together: “Cara Mia” and “Innamorata.” This allows the singer to show off a soaring voice we had not heard before, invoking such Italian crooners as Vic Damone and Tony Martin, and showing off a grand romantic aspect. Mott possesses a rangy tenor with lots of interesting notes below the surface. Following this, two contrasting Christmas songs were offered: a devastating number by Bloyd that explored the emotions of someone who has suffered great loss approaching the holidays (“Never Thought of Christmas”) and a hysterical offering about a Christian hostess exhausted from entertaining her Jewish in-laws (“To All a Goodnight”). This was delivered by Lindsay Rider with a comic brio that could energize any Broadway musical, it was the very definition of showstopper.
Both Rider and Bloyd deserved a special round of applause for just showing up. Rider was a literal last minute substitute who had 24 hours to learn all of her solos; and Bloyd had arrived very late from his home on the West Coast due to flight delays and had no chance to rehearse with the band, nor had members of the band—Isaac Hayward on guitar, Brad Bosenbeck on violin, Sasha Ono on cello, David White on bass, and Adam Wolfe on drums under the music direction of Jeff Cox and assistant Brooke Papineau—all got together before the show. Considering the fragmentation of putting it all together, the results were highly impressive.
Mott paid a moving spoken tribute to Stephen Sondheim, whom he had met during a BMI workshop. He didn’t deliver a song by the master, but interestingly the composer’s influence could be heard in the most unusual piece of the evening—“Sundown Suite,” a soundtrack he wrote for a film about the story of a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s told through ballet. The composition was filled with emotion along with an unbridled romanticism that made one long to see the still unreleased movie.
The final segment of the evening was devoted to three songs from Mott’s theatrical work, In the Light, A Faustian Tale: “The Man I Know,” richly performed by Rider in operatic tones that sent shivers through the room; “Her Embrace,” another romantic exploration, this one from the male perspective, performed by Mott with appropriate passion; and “Dare to Dream,” a delightful love song that visualizes a very modern marriage in a midlevel setting sung by the two guest artists. This collection certainly promises an exciting future for Mott as a theater composer.