Andrea Axelrod will celebrate six great artists born in 1918 in her show Centenary, at Don’t Tell Mama (343 West 46th Street, NYC) on Thursdays May 24 and 31 at 7 PM and on Sunday, June 3 at 4:30 PM. John M. Cook is the pianist and music director. Axelrod and Cook will be joined by bassist Tom Hubbard in their tribute to Pearl Bailey, Leonard Bernstein, Rita Hayworth, Alan Jay Lerner, Robert Preston and Jerome Robbins.
“It is amazing to see who was born in 1918 – from Alexander Solzhenitsyn to Al Capone, from Ray Charles to Ingmar Bergman,” Axelrod said. “I’ve chosen to celebrate six centenarians who truly shaped the world I grew up in and the sounds I love.”
Among the several rarities in the show are “Chicken Fat,” the Meredith Willson number commissioned by President John Kennedy’s Commission on Youth Fitness; “Big Stuff,” the number Bernstein wrote as a prologue to “Fancy Free” and recorded by Billie Holiday; and “Secret Places,” Lerner’s penultimate lyric, to the music of Michel Legrand. (Lerner’s very last lyric was a lullaby to England’s baby Prince Harry.)
Represented on the program are songwriters Bob Carlton, Jerome Kern (with Johnny Mercer and Ira Gershwin), Allan Roberts/Doris Fisher, Alan Jay Lerner (with Burton Lane, Frederick Loewe and Michel Legrand), Hugh Cannon, William Bowers/Russ Black, Meredith Willson, Igor Peshkowski, Jerry Herman, Henry Mancini/Leslie Bricusse and Leonard Bernstein (as his own lyricist and with Betty Comden ND Adolph Green, and Stephen Sondheim).
A musical storyteller often torn between “The Blues in the Night” and Mozart’s Queen of the Night, Axelrod engages in a variety of singing styles. Her aim is often to use oddball choices of material to move an audience as well as to engage with wit and comedy. Her programs draw on her experiences and talents as a journalist, writer, lyricist and opera singer, as well as on her love and knowledge of American theater music.
Centenary, Thursdays May 24 and 31 at 7 PM and Sunday, June 3 at 4:30 PM Tickets are $20 ($15 for MAC members) with a two-drink minimum, cash only.
Don’t Tell Mama (343 West 46th Street, NYC). Tickets are available at at www.donttellmamanyc.com/show
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