By Bart Greenberg***Producer and host Deborah Grace Winer returned to Dizzy’s Club for another in her long-running series of Songbook Sundays, which concentrates each time on a specific one or two songwriters of the golden age of the 
American Songbook. Being in a jazz club, the programs are via jazz interpretations. This time the focus was on Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, featuring three soloists and four musicians in a cavalcade of the team’s best known numbers. Two of the three singers truly shown, one was a disappointment, but the evening was overall a great pleasure. Throughout, Winer shared some delightful brief back stories and kept the show moving along without ever feeling rushed.
Charles Turner brought a voice reminiscent of the youthful Nat King Cole to “Falling in Love With Love,” delivering of one of Hart’s most bittersweet lyrics with great emotion. He brought a subdued joy to “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” an interesting and original approach, and also offered a very relaxed and steady attack on “My Heart Stood Still.” Turner is a performer well-worth following as his career continues to grow.
Late of Broadway’s Once Upon a Mattress, Nikki Renee Daniels simply overwhelmed her audience with her talent and magnetism. Starting out with a joyous, swinging “This Can’t Be Love,” she brought the same magic to an upbeat “I Could Write a Book.” And then came her slow, dreamy, beautifully sung “My Funny Valentine.” Each lyric was explored fully and to great effect. If this number was not perfection, it was so close to… no, it was perfection.
Disappointingly, the headliner was less impressive. Debby Boone has had a long, successful career as a vocalist on stage and on recordings. But she just seemed to be having an off night: she lost track of her lyrics in her complicated first number, “Thou Swell,” although she did lock into the sense of rhythm in the jazzy arrangement. (The host noted the tune is probably the only pop song to start with the word “thou”.) Boone did better with her soulful delivery of “It Never Entered My Mind,” so delicate, so true, and then delved into her acting chops with “Th
e Lady Is a Tramp.” But over all, she just never seemed to connect with the audience or the musicians.
The excellent band had a showcase opportunity with an instrumental version of a favorite jazz standard, “Have You Met Miss Jones?” Throughout the evening, trumpeter Summer Camargo (a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and a regular in the “Saturday Night Live” band), was particularly highlighted. And she certainly earned the interest. Pianist Ted Rosenthal was music director, with bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Tim Horner.
Songbook Sundays returns to Dizzy’s on June 1, 2025 with a tribute to Fats Waller and Duke Ellington. Tickets are available at ticketing.jazz.org.
Dizzy’s is located in Jazz at Lincoln Center, Rose Hall, at 10 Columbus Circle, NYC
