By Marilyn Lester***Make a list of items consistent and reliable, and without doubt Standard Time, the series helmed by Michael Feinstein, would be on it. In this latest edition at 
Zankel Hall, the theme was Big Band Broadway—a wide-ranging program with evergreen hits and hidden gems such as “Old Friend” (Nancy Ford, Gretchen Cryer) from I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road (Off Broadway, but who’s to quibble?).
It’s also a given that when a big band, read the Carnegie Hall Big Band, starts a concert with plenty of brass and plenty of swing, an audience will get “in the mood” (with a nod to Glenn Miller and to arranger-music director-pianist Tedd Firth). The opener was the rousing overture from 1964’s Golden Boy (music by Charles Strouse) with Feinstein bounding on and launching into the first of several medleys of the evening: “Hello, Young Lovers” (Rodgers, Hammerstein), “It’s Alrig
ht With Me” (Porter) and “Come Back to Me” (Lane, Lerner) with a coda of “I Hear Music” (Loesser, Lane). Having set the tone, he easily commanded the stage as genial host, filled with wonderful back stories, sly humor and the most delightful capacity to ad lib with wit.
Making an appearance was special guest Bobby Daye for a solo set of numbers. Daye is a facile performer with a list of Broadway credits a yard long, including, to name a few, Book of Mormon, Shrek, The Color Purple, Lion King, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Dreamgirls, The Wiz and After Midnight. From Smokey Joe’s Cafe he performed “Fool’s Fall in Love” (Lieber, Stoller) and from The Wiz, an energetic “So You Wanted to See the Wizard.” Flash forward to later in the program and Feinstein’s introduction to another number from The Wiz, “Home” in which he deftly explained the origin story of the song. Although “Home” (and most others from 
The Wiz are attributed to Charlie Smalls, the writer of “Home” was friend and colleague, Larry Kerchner—who also wrote “So You Wanted to See the Wizard” and “Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.” And of course Feinstein’s evocative rendition of “Home” served this gorgeous song beautifully.
More highlights 0f Big Band Broadway, among very many, were “Hello, Dolly” (Herman) with the first few bars sung credibly as Louis Armstrong and a bluesy “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues” (Arlen, Koehler) with a fun fact: the number was introduced by comic Milton Berle in the 1932 edition of the Earl Carroll’s Vanities revue. True to the show business adage, “leave ’em wanting more,” Feinstein ended with a mega-medley with tunes whose titles include the word Broadway or are Broadway adjacent. With “Lullaby of Broadway” and a hat tip to “42nd Street” (both Warren, Dubin), you could almost hear the rumble of the subway train and the rattle of the taxis. The finale was a great way to exit into the night, even if no longer do we meet the milkman on his way.
