By Michael Barberi****Every so often I’ll see a performer who makes me remember why I fell in love with cabaret back in the day. Phyllis Pastore’s show, The Last 30 Years, at Pangea, was a warm, funny evening of songs and memories that brought me back to the early 80s when I first discovered the nightclub and piano bar scene in Greenwich Village.
Pastore came to New York from Colorado 30 years ago and soon became a well known part the cabaret scene. She’s performed at some of the best nightclubs in the city, including Don’t Tell Mama, The Duplex, Eighty-Eights (Wow, that takes me back!), The Metropolitan Room and Feinstein’s/54 Below. In 1993, she took a life-changing gig when she agreed to sing at Montparnasse/The Piano Bar in Mykonos, Greece—a gig that has lasted for the last 26 years! She is also a commercial, film and voice actor and she’s the lead singer with the JT Wildman Band, an 8-piece traditional jazz band that performs regularly in Brooklyn. Her show at Pangea demonstrated why she can still sell out a room all these years later!
With her opening number, Irving Berlin’s “The Best Thing for You (Would Be Me),” she connected instantly with the audience. The song began with an ad-lib feel, but soon kicked into a breezy, jaunty tempo with Pastore delivering the lyric with a good-natured touch of friskiness in her voice. She told us the evening would contain nothing too socially significant, “just a few stories and an awful lot about ME!” She spoke of her arrival in New York and of how she jumped head first into the world of cabaret. A story of how she sang “Ring Them Bells” in one of the clubs, only to have Liza Minnelli walk in, got a big reaction, and her recollection of meeting MAC President Lennie Watts, when he was still a newcomer to cabaret, was hilarious.
Pastore treated us to a couple of her own compositions: the comical, self-deprecating “You Must Be Starved for Entertainment,” which had her toying playfully with the audience, telling us “I’m so grateful you’re still coming back for more!” Her second original song, “I Remember You,” was a lovely, wistful song written for an ex-boyfriend and performed with a touch of sorrow and regret in her expressive voice.
We also got a taste of Pastore’s acting chops with “When He Sees Me,” from Sara Bareilles’ musical, Waitress. In Pastore’s hands, the song became a tale of reuniting with a former love, and she played the nervous uncertainty of the situation beautifully. 
Pastore was joined by a couple of special guests. Jim Wildman, a former work colleague, joined her on trombone for a sultry “Georgia On My Mind” (H. Carmichael, S. Gorrell). Guest pianist Bruce Barnes took to the keys to accompany her on “But Beautiful” (J. Van Heusen, Johnny Burke). With Barnes’ delicate, sensitive piano work and Pastore’s sweet, romantic vocal, the moment took me back to my days in piano bars when amazing singers would just drop in and perform wonderful songs like these. And there was one more guest “performer,” albeit an unintended one. When asked if anyone could help her out by playing tambourine on “Pearl’s a Singer” (J. Leiber, M. Stoller, R. Dino, J. Sembello), guess who got the job? Yours truly! Back in my piano bar days, I was known to shake a tambourine here and there, so I volunteered. That was a lot of fun!
Towards the end of the evening, Pastore spoke about her gig in Mykonos. She told us how she always came with a ton of material—ready to sing just about anything anyone wanted. But more often than not, she’d encounter drunken Brits who only wanted Shirley Bassey songs! So there was nothing left to do but sing a Shirley Bassey medley! This mostly tongue-in-cheek collection included “Big Spender” (C. Coleman, D. Fields), “(Where Do I Begin) Love Story” (F. Lai, C. Sigman) and “This Is My Life” (B. Canfora, A. Amurri, N. Newell), which she even sang bits of in Italian and French. And a Bassey medley wouldn’t be complete without a bit of James Bond music, so Pastore interspersed the songs with a stunning rendition of John Barry’s famous Bond theme… on kazoo!
Throughout the show, Musical Director, John McMahon, a wonderful pianist, singer and songwriter in his own right, provided solid arrangements, as always—thoughtful and sensitive on the ballads, witty and upbeat for the comedic numbers. He also contributed quite a few funny quips of his own, adding his own wry humor to the evening.
As for Pastore, well, she was marvelous. As I listened to her sing, I couldn’t help but feel that her voice, with its wide, throaty vibrato and rich low tones, was like a warm blanket in which we could all wrap ourselves. She also has a somewhat dark sense of humor, which I feel drew us in, connecting us to the stories she told, and making us feel a part of her journey.
The audience at Pangea was filled with people from all facets of Pastore’s life. Some of us were part of the cabaret community, others from Pastore’s days as a law clerk, and as a nice surprise, the owners of The Piano Bar in Mykonos had flown in just to see the show. We may or may not have been starved for entertainment, but we all knew that when Phyllis Pastore is singing, we’ll gladly keep coming back for more!
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