Amanda McBroom

Wintersong

Birdland, NYC, September 23, 2024

Reviewed by Alix Cohen

Amanda McBroom, once more bravely going where no one has gone before, brought this year’s first holiday concert to Birdland. Yes, there were tinsel and dreidels, but also intelligence, wit, and white-knuckled hope against hope, the latter reason enough for early sharing. McBroom was in splendid voice. Her authenticity and emotional shading kept the sold-out venue in thrall.

“Are You Ready?” (McBroom/Michele Brourman): “Get the bulbs out, hang them high/Try to do it when you’re sober” she began, tongue in cheek. “Here we are again, my love, underneath a tree/Time for me to let you know/just what you mean to me” (“My Christmas Angel” written with Tom Snow), she continued more traditionally  The vocal was longlined and landed softly; one hand was extended, open.

As an acknowledged “lapsed Methodist,” she told us the holidays are “all about the food. My favorite is Nog”; “Now I’m not the kind who’s fast with a line/I usually take things slow/So forgive me, my dear, if I’m presuming here/But there’s somethin’ I need to know/How do you like your eggs?” It was irresistibly pulp-novelish. McBroom leaned out to invitingly address now this man, now that. Heat rose. “Huevos!” she almost growled. “A fine frittata/Maybe something hotta?” she purred. (“Eggs”; McBroom/Brourman.) On bass, Ritt Henn kept time like a bobblehead. At the piano, Beth Falcone was hunched and grooving.

Joni Mitchell’s “River” was as vulnerable and elegiac as an open wound; mined essence. The piano exuded dappled light. The club was hushed. This was not a performance it was a wrenching share. “Mary Said No” (McBroom/Brourman) brought out the teller of tales; a sacred history intuited by modern women and passed on with incantory gravitas. Phrases of “Ave Maria” floated from McBroom to Falcone like bells.

“The New Harris/Waltz” (McBroom/Brourman) was just what it sounds like, an uplifting campaign song. “Yesterday tasted like ashes/Now it’s milkshakes and chocolate malts/We’re all wearing moustaches/as we dance to The New Harris/Waltz.” The song was an amalgam of vulnerability and bravado, and was warily emboldened. “There’s a song that’s the epitome of what we all need now. It was recorded by my friend and guest, Heather MacRae.” With one hand lightly at the mike stand, MacRae offered “Hope Floats” (McBroom/Brourman). Her voice quiveried slightly as she represented us all during these challenging times. Every breath informed the lyric. The bass was lustrously bowed. McBroom wiped her eyes.

“I Give Up” (Henn/Falcone) was performed on guitar by Ritt Henn, whose sandpapery vocal ached. “Give from the heart tenderly/Give a little time graciously/In the spirit of giving/I give up.” The audience interpreted “screw the tinsel/dDamn the dreidel” as curmudgeonly, but in fact the lyric unexpectedly gave way to “give up the hate…the hurt…the dread…the pain.” We didn’t see it coming. (Falcone and Henn will be at Urban Stages December 8.)

A preface about our increasing homeless population and “the couple who had to sleep in a stall” led into the harrowing a cappella chant “Baby in a Box” (McBroom). We held our collective breath. “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was sung devotionally and morphed seamlessly into “The Rose.” (HW Longfellow/McBroom): “Just remember in the winter/Far beneath the bitter snows/Lies the seed that with the sun’s love/In the spring becomes the rose.” McBroom must have performed this song hundreds of times, yet here it was freshly relevant in the grip of exhausted fear and the light of hope. We all sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (Hugh Martin) just a bit less fraught than when we arrived. This was a wonderful show.

Much of this material is contained on McBroom’s new CD Wintersong, which comes out the first week in October.