I would like to begin this, my first in what hopes to be a long line of articles about cabaret's renaissance during the 1980s and early 1990s, with a sincere and heartfelt "thank you" to my publisher herein, Scott Barbarino, and my editor, Penny Landau, for providing me with the opportunity to lend both my journalistic

capacities and what I hope might be considered a keen memory for nightlife history over the last twenty years, to NiteLifeExchange. And to Rob Lester, for providing an extra editorial eye on my work. I must confess that my invitation to join here as a writer was quite unexpected and blissfully so; I had merely launched a series of memorial pages on Facebook for certain individuals who were an integral part of the cabaret and piano bar scenes throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and this led to my being offered the position. Needless to say, I relish the opportunity to have been given a new platform in which I might lend what humble expertise I have on the subject of cabaret's rebirth twenty-five years ago, and both the individuals and organizations that made it such a gilded time and place in which to grow as an artist for so many, including myself.

In the magical days of 1983, cabaret experienced a major rebirth. It had begun in the 1970s with the advent of such clubs as Reno Sweeney, Brothers And Sisters, Ted Hook's OnStage, The Cookery, Les Mouches, Mickey's, Marty's, Freddy's Supper Club, and so very many others. But it was when the team of Erv Raible and the late Rob Hoskins assumed the helm of such clubs as Don't Tell Mama, The Duplex and Brandy's, that cabaret truly came into its own, once and again, as a viable presence in the entertainment spectrum. Raible, along with the late Curt Davis of the New York Post, PR maven Penny Landau, the late Marty Schaeffer (Variety), the late Stan Martin of WQEW Radio, Jan Wallman ("Godmother of Cabaret") and the late Greg Dawson (proprietor of The Ballroom), took it upon themselves to create the Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC, later renamed the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs, and founded in the wake of the demise of NACA), which soon had a quickly-growing membership dedicated not only to preserving the greatest traditions of cabaret as enjoyed decades earlier, at such locations as the Persian Room and Café Versailles, but also to creating an atmosphere where those artists too young to remember such venues, would have spaces in which to grow, and to be nurtured creatively. And the late Bob Harrington served as a special and most merciful benefactor with his weekly "Bistro Bits" column in the performing arts trade newspaper Back Stage.

A unifying factor on the cabaret circuit during this time, and a woman whose memory is unequivocally cherished now and for time immemorial, was the unfailingly devoted Janet Sumner (1913-2001). It can be wholeheartedly said that she was not only a true original, but that there will never be another creature on earth to possibly resemble the bundle of energy, intelligence, compassion and fun that was she. One could scarcely ever attend a show, or an evening in a piano bar, and not somehow see her sitting there, keeping all present entertained merely by gracing them with a smile, a story of that day's adventures or a laugh, whether a light chuckle or a hearty roar.

Janet Sumner was born in the heart of societal Boston, a direct descendant of the late great abolitionist Charles Sumner, whose statue still stands proudly at Harvard University. In fact, when once asked why she had such tolerance for people regardless of color, religion or sexual orientation, she said, in her thick Bostonian accent, "Oh, intolerance wasn't accepted in our family. You know who I come from, after all." This was usually followed by one of her customary chuckles.

After a childhood and young adulthood as a true "Back Bay Boston Belle," she studied for a brief time at Smith College but soon "drifted south" to New York, where she enrolled in a secretarial course at the then-prestigious Katharine Gibbs School. "In those days," she'd say, "we had to all wear hats and gloves to class. And we had to learn both Gregg shorthand and Pitman shorthand, and we couldn't graduate unless we typed ninety words per minute and did both Gregg and Pitman at one hundred twenty per. Oh, did those teachers ride us. But I loved every minute of it."