WHEN the 19th annual Cabaret Convention begins with the first of four concerts at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Wednesday evening, a genre that has struggled for years below the mass-media radar will lift its collective voice in an annual appeal for attention and respect.
Please listen, that voice politely implores. I am in danger of dying of neglect, and I have valuable knowledge gleaned from the American songbook and from show business history about love, memory, art and time. The magic I can conjure in a romantic cubbyhole where the lights are low, the wine flows and loved ones are at hand is like no other kind.
The Rose Theater, the modern auditorium inside Jazz at Lincoln Center where the convention part entertainment gala, part trade show for nightclub bookers takes place, isnt a candlelit nook, but it must suffice. Each evening, starting at 6, roughly a dozen performers (the roster changes nightly) will sing two songs each. Karen Akers, Paula West, Marilyn Maye, Mary Cleere Haran, Julie Wilson, Barbara Carroll, K T Sullivan, Tommy Tune and Barb Jungr are among this years most eagerly anticipated guests.
Most of the genres important male stars Michael Feinstein, Tom Wopat, Jack Jones, Steve Tyrell and Brian Stokes Mitchell, to name five are absent from the roster. But one of its most promising young male performers, Tony DeSare, a Sinatra acolyte in his early 30s who sings Prince as well as Johnny Mercer, will appear on Friday.
Cabaret venerates maturity more fervently than any other form of entertainment. Ms. Maye, Ms. Wilson and Ms. Carroll are all in their 80s, as are three of the genres other godmothers, Barbara Cook, Eartha Kitt and Elaine Stritch, and its unofficial godfather, Tony Bennett. All might be described as sages who take the long view. All are old enough to remember and have participated in the golden age of live entertainment that faded with the incursions of rock n roll and television. From the late 1940s through the mid-60s there were several tiers of live entertainment in New York: glamorous hotel supper clubs like the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel and the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria, high-end nightclubs like the Blue Angel, smaller hole-in-the-wall Midtown jazz clubs , and smaller botes and piano bars scattered through Manhattan where one could drop in for the price of a drink.
As the nightclub world has shrunk, that kind of informality is largely a thing of the past. The question also continually nags as to whether there is a young generation to carry on the tradition. The few younger stars, like Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall and Michael Bubl, who have passed through cabaret and jazz clubs on their way to the national spotlight rarely look back.
Please listen, that voice politely implores. I am in danger of dying of neglect, and I have valuable knowledge gleaned from the American songbook and from show business history about love, memory, art and time. The magic I can conjure in a romantic cubbyhole where the lights are low, the wine flows and loved ones are at hand is like no other kind.
The Rose Theater, the modern auditorium inside Jazz at Lincoln Center where the convention part entertainment gala, part trade show for nightclub bookers takes place, isnt a candlelit nook, but it must suffice. Each evening, starting at 6, roughly a dozen performers (the roster changes nightly) will sing two songs each. Karen Akers, Paula West, Marilyn Maye, Mary Cleere Haran, Julie Wilson, Barbara Carroll, K T Sullivan, Tommy Tune and Barb Jungr are among this years most eagerly anticipated guests.
Most of the genres important male stars Michael Feinstein, Tom Wopat, Jack Jones, Steve Tyrell and Brian Stokes Mitchell, to name five are absent from the roster. But one of its most promising young male performers, Tony DeSare, a Sinatra acolyte in his early 30s who sings Prince as well as Johnny Mercer, will appear on Friday.
Cabaret venerates maturity more fervently than any other form of entertainment. Ms. Maye, Ms. Wilson and Ms. Carroll are all in their 80s, as are three of the genres other godmothers, Barbara Cook, Eartha Kitt and Elaine Stritch, and its unofficial godfather, Tony Bennett. All might be described as sages who take the long view. All are old enough to remember and have participated in the golden age of live entertainment that faded with the incursions of rock n roll and television. From the late 1940s through the mid-60s there were several tiers of live entertainment in New York: glamorous hotel supper clubs like the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel and the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria, high-end nightclubs like the Blue Angel, smaller hole-in-the-wall Midtown jazz clubs , and smaller botes and piano bars scattered through Manhattan where one could drop in for the price of a drink.
As the nightclub world has shrunk, that kind of informality is largely a thing of the past. The question also continually nags as to whether there is a young generation to carry on the tradition. The few younger stars, like Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall and Michael Bubl, who have passed through cabaret and jazz clubs on their way to the national spotlight rarely look back.
