Andrea Marcovicci
Beyond Compare
Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, October 26, 2024
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
For one of her rare New York City appearances, cabaret icon Andrea Marcovicci appeared at the Cabaret Convention and then performed two shows at Don’t Tell Mama on the same day. At that venue, accompanied by her long-time music director/pianist Gerald Sternbach, she offered a master class in cabaret performance. She took the stage with her trademark elegance and just a bit of stardust and offered a magical set of standards and obscurities from the Great American Songbook; each selection was detailed and specific. Her voice may be a bit limited, but her artistry is not.
Her dramatic skills were evident from the beginning when she built from the quiet yearning of “A Horse with Wings” (Ricky Ian Gordon) that blended into the passionate enthusiasm of “What More Do I Need?” (Stephen Sondheim). By tying the material to her personal life she gave it much more power. In one instance, her memories of meeting her husband preceded a medley of two Frank Loesser songs—the more obscure “Say It” (music by Jimmy McHugh) and the standard “Heart and Soul” (Hoagy Carmichael). She revived her Irving Berlin medley of “Say It Isn’t So,” “What’ll I Do?,” “Remember,” and “Suppertime”; it showed off her dramatic power in a solemn torch numbers that was devastating.
She also treated the audience to some charming obscurities, such as the delightful “Shakespeare Lied” (Carolyn Leigh/Elmer Bernstein) and “At the Pound” (Babbie Green), both of which allowed her to show off her wry sense of humor and her great capacity in characterization. More humor came in her desire to have 16 handsome men in tuxedos help her off the piano after she had laid waste to the romantic musings of “Two for the Road” (Leslie Bricusse/Henry Mancini). But then, she was quite up to surprising, moving, and delighting her audience throughout, with just a bit of magic.
