KT Sullivan
Faraway Places
Pangea, NYC, November 21, 2024
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
Photo: Maryann Lopinto
Incandescent diva KT Sullivan brought her glamour and talent to the Pangea jazz club for a solo show that was a pure delight. She began the evening with an a cappella rendition of the title tune of her program, “Faraway Places” (Alex Kramer/Joan Whitney), blended with Noël Coward’s “Sail Away.” This set the mood and the theme for the evening, as the star reminisced about her many travels with various family members. Throughout, she accompanied herself on piano, while she captured many contrasting moods. Both the previous Coward number and the following “I Travel Alone”— a lesser-known art song from that master—contained an element of melancholy that was most effective.
She quoted her dear friend Malachy McCourt, who said “Live every day as if it’s your last and one day you’ll be right.” Continuing, she applied her Auntie Mame-ish personality to some delightfully silly material that included “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” (Jimmy Kennedy/Nat Simon) and “Paree” (Howard Dietz/Arthur Schwartz); the latter had an endearing Bea Lillie imitation. Of course, she also took the opportunity to show off her classical training with the bewitching “Adrift on a Star” (the unusual pairing of Jacques Offenbach and E.Y. Harburg) and the ultra-romantic “Vienna, My City of Dreams” (Rudolf Sieczyriski). Of course, her Irish background had to be saluted with the folk song “Molly Malone” and the traditional “Kerry Dancers” (Edward James Malloy), and she delivered with flair.
This wide range of selections with their shifting styles and moods kept the audience’s attention despite the rather static stage picture that resulted from Sullivan’s being locked to the piano. Her warmth and genuineness as she regaled her audience with her various journeys made the evening highly personal. Even as she came close to the end of the show with a delightful tribute to New York City—a medley of “Give My Regards to Broadway” (George M. Cohan), “Take Me Back to Manhattan” (Cole Porter), and “I Happen to Like New York” (also Porter)—she kept the things buoyant as she mentioned that she lived very close to Pangea. She ended the evening with a show-off piece that might have worked better earlier in the show, given that “What a Movie” (Leonard Bernstein) from Trouble in Tahiti was an effective but less happy way to end the lovely time. Still, this slight misstep did not mar the over contentment she gave her listeners.
