In what he is calling the third part of a “Cabaret Trilogy of Classic Hollywood Songwriters,” 2016 MAC Award nominee and 2015 BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Award Nominee Jeff Macauley will launch his new show, Le Grand Tour: The Music of Michel Legrand, at the Metropolitan Room on August 12 at 7 pm.
Over the past four years, Macauley has celebrated the songbooks of Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award winning songwriters of the 1960s, ‘70s, and ’80s, Norman Gimbel (It Was Me: The Lyrics of Norman Gimbel) and Henry Mancini (Mr. Lucky: The Songs of Henry Mancini). Now, Macauley will turn his evocative vocals and on-stage charm to exploring the work of the legendary French film composer who wrote the scores and themes to the movie musicals, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “Young Girls of Rochefort” and “Yentl,” as well as countless other films.
Some of Legrand’s most memorable songs include “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?” “Where Is It Written?” “Watch What Happens,” “The Windmills Of Your Mind,” “I Will Wait For You,” “Sweet Gingerbread Man,” and ‘You Must Believe In Spring.” Legrand won three Academy Awards, five Grammy Awards, and ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to working with Gimbel, Legrand also collaborated with lyricists Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Sheldon Harnick, Hal David, and Earl Brown.
For Le Grand Tour (which is also booked at the Metropolitan Room for November 19 at 7 pm) Macauley is bringing back his Musical Director/Arranger/Pianist Tex Arnold and bass player Jon Burr. For reservations, go to: www.metropolitanroom.com.
BistroAwards.com cabaret reviewer Mark Dundas Wood once wrote of Macauley: “His voice is expressive and quite pliable . . . He did an admirable job on the romantic and otherwise tender songs . . . The expressiveness of Macauley’s singing came not just from the colors and contours of his voice, but also from his facial expressions and gestures. He performed the music with his entire body . . .”
Jeff Macauley was nominated for a 2016 “Male Vocalist” MAC Award for Mr. Lucky: The Songs of Henry Mancini (which was also nominated for a 2015 BroadwayWorld.com award for “Best Tribute Show”). In previous shows, he explored the rich world of early musical films in Hollywood Party: Movie Songs 1928-1936, and most recently paid tribute to beloved singing star and Hollywood icon Dinah Shore, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her birth, in the acclaimed revival of MWAH! The Dinah Shore Show (for which Jeff received Backstage magazine’s Bistro Award in 1998). His 2012 show, It Was Me: The Lyrics of Norman Gimbel, has been performed in New York and Los Angeles and is available as a studio recording on CDBaby, iTunes and Amazon.
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