The cabaret and concert star (and very successful cabaret director), Jeff Harnar, actually had youthful dreams of performing in musicals on the Great White Way. But the allure of the cabaret stage captured him early on in his career, and the rest, 
as they say, is history. Several decades and seven albums on, Harnar has racked up an impressive number of richly-deserved awards, including MACs for best male vocalist, major male artist, celebrity artist, outstanding revue, major recording, and best director. He received Bistro awards for best newcomer, best male vocalist, outstanding show, outstanding revue, and best director and has won five BroadwayWorld cabaret awards as a performer and director. The Mable Mercer Foundation—for which he’s been a longtime host at the Cabaret Convention—has also recognized him with the Mabel Mercer Award in 2022 and the Donald F. Smith Award in 2015. Harnar is now revising his acclaimed show, The 1959 Broadway Songbook with an updated album reissue and show at Birdland.
Harnar revisits The 1959 Broadway Songbook at Birdland on Monday, October 6 at 7 PM, with music director, Alex Rybeck, bassist Tom Hubbard and drummer Dan Gross.The show is is directed by Sara Louise Lazarus.
Nitelife
Exchange (NLE) asks Jeff Harnar (JH) Six Questions:
NLE: With The 1959 Broadway Songbook coming back to Birdland and the album being remastered and re-released, you’ve now been singing this material for several decades. Has the passage of time affected the way you interpret these songs?
JH: Ha! It’s certainly affected the keys I sing these songs in! Actually, with mentors like Julie Wilson, Marilyn Maye, and Margaret Whiting I have witnessed first-hand that time is our friend as performers, in that, with age comes more life experience to bring to the lyrics. So happily yes, these songs have only yielded dividends in what they mean to me over the years. A great example is Mark Blitzestein’s “I Wish It So” from the musical Juno. It’s a song, as written for the show, of youthful yearning for love and life. And
in 1991 when The 1959 Broadway Songbook debuted and I was in my early thirties, it certainly was for me. But now, in my mid-sixties, these words of longing are especially poignant to express. Yes, one can still have the dream, though I am indeed, “the sadder but wiser girl” (to borrow from The Music Man, also running in New York in 1959).
NLE: We’ve noted that the music of The 1959 Broadway Songbook and many of your other shows mark a golden age in the canon of American pop standards. But some would say if you search long enough, there are always great new songs being written. Do you have a desire to interpret more recent work from contemporary songwriters or musicals?
JH: I absolutely agree that there are extraordinary contemporary songwriters and songs. My most recent show Confessions of a New Yorker had material by the always stunning Annie Dine
rman, Broadway star Jim Walton, the insanely clever Rick Crom and my music director of 42 years, the melodically brilliant Alex Rybeck. I’ve also performed the works of Brian Lasser, David Friedman, Ann Hampton Callaway, David Zippel, Julie Gold, Craig Carnelia … if a song can take me where mere speech alone cannot, I am always interested. But yes, my musical soul’s default setting is the songs from the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s … and Sondheim!
NLE: Your recent albums have focused on Sammy Cahn, Cy Coleman and Stephen Sondheim, which one might say roughly run on the continuum from simple love songs to more sophisticated character number from multilayered book musicals. Does your approach on certain songs differ depending on the context for which they were written?
JH: Oh, I hope not! The joy of creating songbook shows is taking a lyric out of the context of the show it was written for and personalizing to my own life experience. One of the gifts of my collaboration with Alex Rybeck is he 
can intuit how a lyric might filter through my heart and soul … and in which key. And an avid cabaret-goer, the biggest thrills for me are when an artist can let me hear a song anew with their unique personal connection and musical arrangement. The 1959 Broadway Songbook is bookended with two spectacular arrangements of songs from West Side Story and The Sound of Music that Alex has made astonishingly fresh and specific, that have abo nothing to do with fire escapes or Alps!
NLE: You recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of your collaboration with music director Alex Rybeck – what’s the secret to such a successful long-term musical marriage?
JH: Therapy! Alex is my “brother from other parents.” When my life is through, I will still be dazzled that our paths happened to connect in 1983. He was the first arranger I worked with, the first to help me begin to find my identity as a singer and the first to fulfill a dream of having a creative, musical partner onstage. And I happened to find both a gem of a talent and human in Alex.
NLE: You’re a veteran of the NYC scene but have performed in clubs and concert halls around the world – have you noticed particular idiosyncrasies of audiences in different cities or countries? Do they show their appreciation in different ways when you’re on stage or ask different kinds of questions after the show?
JH: The great gift of most of my performing experience is that the audiences have bought a ticket and are predisposed to enjoying the material being presented wherever I’m performing. However, for more than 20 years I folded cruise ship bookings into my calendar and that is something else entirely. On a ship, it’s an audience that bought a ticket for the voyage, not the show. My show was just one more “buffet” in their package, perhaps to take a song or two and move on. When those audiences embraced me, it was especially thrilling. Without question those years seasoned me with the sheer abundance of new musicians, new venues and varieties of people I entertained. Happily, working with directors like Sara Louise Lazarus, Barry Kleinbort, and Sondr
a Lee, has given me the ammunition of well-crafted shows that seem to connect almost universally. And when all else fails, give ‘em “New York, New York!”
NLE: As discussed, your recent albums feature the music of Stephen Sondheim, Cy Coleman and Sammy Cahn, and you’ve created shows dedicated to Comden & Green and the Gershwins. Is there another Golden Age songwriter that you might tackle next? What elements do you look for when you’re first developing the concept for a new show?
JH: What do I look for? “Words, words, words,” to quote My Fair Lady, another show still running on Broadway in 1959. The lyrics are my script so I am forever focused on where the wealth is to tell stories in song. Certainly Jerry Herman, Lorenz Hart, and Oscar Hammerstein come to mind as rich resources for a future project … I’m longing to see a revue of Alex Rybeck songs modeled after Closer Than Ever or Starting Here, Starting Now. Now that would be a joyful future project!
