Search - Andrea Marcovicci :: If I Were a Bell

A night at the Algonquin

Michael Walden | St. Louis MO USA | 12/09/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At one point on this CD, Andrea Marcovicci remarks that she wants a loop of the sound of the Oak Room, so she can take it home and - when she's lonely for the Algonquin - she can play it in her home and sing and imagine she's there. The Algonquin Hotel sits on 44th Street in midtown Manhattan and is home to the Oak Room, one of New York's renowned cabarets. It's a supper club type of place that seats maybe a hundred people. It's a convivial place with tables that are close together and strangers talk among one another, usually about that night's performer. Cocktails are served, then dinner, then there is the show. You often get to meet the performer in the Algonquin's lobby after the show and talk with fellow patrons, as well. It's about 4 hours of entertainment that's intimate and civilized and I often wonder why it's not more popular. If you haven't been there or, if you have but want to remember, this CD is going ot get you about as close as you can.



Of all of Marcovicci's CD's, just a few (this one, "I'll Be Seeing You", "Live In London" and "Marcovicci Sings the Movies") are actual live performances. The "Movies" CD contains no patter but the others do and I think these albums will point the way for future listeners who want to understand her magnetism and popularity. Nothing will substitute for the actual experience of seeing her live. One critic wrote that her smiles generate actual heat and I won't argue that. She has a striking charisma that draws you in. Yes, her voice has seen better days but I think you'd have to work at it to actually dislike this woman. At one performance, she confessed that she had been accused of being the "chatty chanteuse" and that's true but therein lies a lot of her charm.



This CD contains most of the dialogue from her Frank Loesser show. It would be nice if we could have all of it but let's not get picky. The nice thing about the patter in these shows is how it gives the songs context and deepens their meaning. For instance, when Marcovicci sings "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" she explains Frank Loesser's dismay when the song became a holiday standard. Loesser intended this song to be sung by two lovers in the spring of the year, when they were so optimistic about their new love that they were completely confident that - come the holidays - they'd still be together and there would be nobody else they'd want to be with at the stroke of twelve. It's December now and I hear this song in shopping malls and such but I'll never hear it the same way again, thanks to what I learned here.



Marcovicci explores Frank Loesser's life and career, singing songs from the Loesser songbook including songs from such shows as "Guys and Dolls" and "The Most Happy Fella" and songs from his Tin Pan Alley days. She ties it up into a perfect package that has a strong sense of beginning, middle and end and you have the experience of a complete concert performance. (The CD includes some outtakes at the end. Among others - how she copes with her daughter's stress.) My advice is to put together a nice dinner, put on this CD, open a bottle of wine and enjoy a sort of home version of a night at the Algonquin. Until you can do it for real, this is the next best thing."