By Michael Portantiere***We in NYC certainly have no dearth of Broadway revivals (and revisals), but in this reviewer’s experience, it’s extremely rare for a classic cabaret show to be recreated many years after the 
fact, more or less in its original form. Well, audiences at Birdland were treated to just such an event when longtime cabaret star Jeff Harnar and his intrepid musical director-arranger-pianist Alex Rybeck lit up the stage there with a treasurable encore performance of Jeff Harnar Sings the 1959 Broadway Songbook.
It’s no exaggeration to describe the original incarnation of this fabulous show, first seen in February 1991 in the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, as one of the most successful and well-documented cabaret acts ever, having been recorded live at the Algonquin for Original Cast Records and also filmed for PBS Broadcast in 1993. (In a pitch during the Birdland show, Harnar quipped that he still had some physical 
copies of the album available for purchase, “but only on cassette” – a sweet and charming reminder of just how long ago this show first made a splash.)
What the Birdland audience saw and heard, with only some minor changes, was a close recreation of the show as it was first offered — an utterly delightful, brilliantly constructed survey of songs from musicals that were running on Broadway in 1959 in their original productions. It began with a gorgeous presentation of “Tonight” from West Side Story that replaced the driving, pulsating arrangement of the song as heard in the show with a more flowing accompaniment artfully incorporating the famous “tritone” melodic phrase used so frequently by Leonard Bernstein in that immortal score.
A procession of delights followed as Harnar and Rybeck, with the aid of top-drawer bass player and drummer Tom Hubbard and Dan Gross, presented a remarkable stack of songs from 21 hit and flop musicals of the late 1950s, from At the Drop of a Hat to 
Destry Rides Again to First Impressions to Gypsy to My Fair Lady to The Sound of Music to the aforementioned West Side Story. As you can be told by anyone who has seen other Jeff Harnar shows, for example his terrific tribute to Stephen Sondheim, here’s an artist who, in close collaboration with this music director, rarely if ever presents a complete song in its original arrangement, and often edits and combines sections of famous songs with others to fashion marvelous medleys of several tunes that are tied together idiomatically.
So, for example, a “Marriage Medley” encompassed such items as “Get Me to the Church on Time” (from My Fair Lady), “Don’t Marry Me” (from Flower Drum Song, wittily performed in the style of “Getting Married Today” from the 1970 show Company), “One Hand, One Heart” (West Side Story) and “An 
Ordinary Couple” (The Sound of Music); a “Politics Medley” sampled “Little Tin Box” (Fiorello), “‘The Country’s in the Very Best of Hands” (L’il Abner), and “No Way to Stop It” (from the stage version of The Sound of Music, but dropped from the movie); and a “Love Song” medley, which obviously gave Harnar and Rybeck a lot to choose from, lovingly combined such beautiful ballads as “When Did I Fall in Love” (Fiorello), “Long Before I Knew You” (Bells are Ringing), and “Till There Was You” (The Music Man).
As if all that fabulous Broadway material wasn’t enough to satisfy the most ravenous cabaret/musical theater gourmand, the show also featured in its “intermission” spot a “Car Radio Medley” that allowed for performances of the title songs from the films A Summer Place and Gigi, along with Bobby Darin’s pop hit “Dream Lover.” The finale of the evening was the uplifting “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” (The Sound of Music), 
and the encore was the longing, bittersweet “’Til Tomorrow” (Fiorello).
Throughout the evening, Harnar was in great voice, and his charm and wit were on full display in both the songs and the patter sections, all under the loving direction of Sara Louise Lazarus. At key moments, Rybeck contributed piquant vocal harmonies to further spice up or sweeten the music. Birdland was sold out for this show, no doubt with an audience made up of savvy folk who did not want to miss the golden opportunity to re-experience a quintessential cabaret act or see it live for the first time, and the response was through-the-roof enthusiastic. An indelible new memory for some, a wonderful, recovered memory for others, but a very special event no matter how you look at it.
Photos by Kevin Alvey
