Jeff LeProtto
Gotta Be Me
The Green Room 42, NYC, May 22, 2022
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
Jeff LeProtto took the stage at The Green Room 42 to an over-the-top reaction from an audience of devoted followers. It’s not that the man isn’t tremendously talented or that he doesn’t have some impressive credits, such as the recent film of West Side Story, the Broadway production of Newsies, and the upcoming Neil Diamond show, A Beautiful Noise. (He was heading to Boston after this performance for the out-of-town tryout for that show.) But fans who cheer his taking a breath can be both misleading and distracting.
The song selections for the evening were smart and varied.
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They include an excellent mix of ballads and up-tempo numbers along with an
equally varied choice of show tunes; among them was an excellent mashup of “The
Jet Song” and “King of New York.” There were pop tunes (a doo-wop medley of
“I’m in the Mood for Love,” “Moody’s Mood for Love,” and “Morse Code of Love.”
There were some unexpected classics (“Jazz Baby”), and even some songs he wrote
himself—“Hazel (By the Bay).” All of these were mixed with a good deal of
movement and choreography that was limited by the cramped space available to
him; dancing seems to come totally natural to him. His devotion to dance was
illuminated in another mashup that involved “I Can Do That” and “I Can’t Stand
Still.”
The stage was cramped in part because he chose to have a quartet backing him up: music director/pianist Sonny Paladino, bassist Yuka Tadano, drummer Grant Braddock, and saxophonist/flutist John DeSimini. As good as they all were, if LeProtto wanted to feature his dance and choreographic skills, he might have chosen to have fewer musicians. The evening might have profited from the involvement of another pair of eyes—namely, a director besides himself.
LeProtto has a nice delivery of his patter, which is flip and funny, and he has a nice degree of self-deprecating humor. He tended to treat his material lightly and enthusiastically but without too much exploration below the surface. Then he surprised us with his final number, one of his own compositions, “Fly with the Wind,” a song of power and depth. He trusted himself to stand still and use a vocal style and range that hadn’t been displayed all evening—a true and traditional Broadway power delivery that was surprising and very welcome. In a cabaret space, more of this was something the show would have benefitted from.
