By Bart Greenberg***Host Jamie deRoy took to the stage of Birdland Jazz Club looking like a million bucks—clad in an outfit that mixed classic glamour with show biz flash. With great enthusiasm and humor, she musically recounted the 
journey of her self-named series from club to club to club (many sadly now defunct) with “35 Years Celebration,” a parody of Richard Rodgers’ “My Favorite Things,” with appropriate new lyrics by long-time director Barry Kleinbort. Most of her guests had a long history with the series, with one terrifically fun exception (read on to find out who!). Ron Abel was at the piano and Ritt Henn was on bass, so the musical aspects of the evening were in very fine hands.
The first of deRoy’s guests was the glorious soprano, Harolyn Blackwell. Possessing a soaring voice that contains great warmth, she held the stage with her passion and her expressive body language, using her hands to emphasize her emotions. She focused on two songs by Leonard Bernstein after talking warmly about their work together: “A Little Bit in Love” (lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green) and 
“Something’s Coming” (lyrics by Stephen Sondheim). The selections allowed her to display two very different parts of her personality.
Next up was musical comedy veteran Jason Graae. Bringing his standard humor and joy to the stage, he unfortunately had to deal with a very intrusive fire alarm/smoke detector going off (false alarm), which twice interrupted him exactly as he began to sing. When he was finally able to begin his performance, his first lyrics were “I’m calm,” which brought the house down. Of course, he was actually was embarking on a medley of “I’m Calm” and “Don’t Look at Me” (both by Sondheim), which beautifully fit together for quite an impact. He followed that up with a mash up of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” 
(Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) and “Bewitched” (Howard Greenfield, Jak Keller, arranged by Alex Rebeck), featuring an impressive oboe solo by Graae.
Songwriter-performer Julie Gold won the audience over by commenting on deRoy’s sparkly outfit: “every time she raises her arm, a plane lands at Newark airports.” She offered up two self-authored number, the recent and very funny “Psychos” and her Grammy-winning “From a Distance.”
That special surprise was the cast of the current Broadway success Operation Mincemeat—five talented British performers who also opened the show in London: David Cumming, Claire–Marie Hall, Natasha Hodgson, Jak Malone and Zoe Roberts, each of whom play multiple roles regardless of gender and age. All but Hall are credited with book, music and lyrics. They charmed the audience with their explanations of the show 
and apologized for some very heavy regional accents before performing a flavorfu, semi-rapl number, “God, That’s Brilliant!”
Finally, violinist David Buskin and fiddler Robin Batteau teamed up to bring a country flair to the evening. The vibe of their numbers was definitely autobiographical as they shared “Boy With the Violin” (Batteau) and “Heart of the Audience” (by both). The mix of fine musicianship and good cheer was a true crowd pleaser. They stayed on stage to support deRoy’s trademark and still very funny number, “Jews Don’t Camp” (Buskin). This delightful evening made it very clear that 35 years is just the beginning for this wonderful series—Jamie deRoy & friends.
