By Andrew Poretz …
The delightful cabaret star Maude Maggart made a rare New York headliner appearance with “Here Come the Dreamers,” her Birdland debut. She sold out the large room upstairs. Ms. Maggart also made an appearance the next night at the Cabaret Convention before flying to London for a show with cabaret legend Andrea Marcovicci.
Ms. Maggart comes from a family of performers. Her parents, actors Brandon Maggart and Diane McAfee, met in the Broadway show Applause. Her sister is pop star Fiona Apple. The star was accompanied by musical director/pianist Gerald Sternbach and cellist Yair Evnine.
For this show, Ms. Maggart carefully chose dreamy songs and made them even dreamier, with gorgeous arrangements and an often-ethereal delivery. Her voice and style seem lifted out of the 1930s, with the kind of lilt reminiscent of the young Judy Garland, with a quavering but appealing vibrato. Her Irish heritage subtly permeates her singing.
The star opened with the show’s title song, “Here Come the Dreamers” (Hugh Martin/Marshall Barer), with a lush, gorgeous arrangement for piano and cello.
There may be no better storyteller with a voice as pure and glorious. Ms. Maggart includes the verse to most songs. Though a verse typically sets up the entire premise, some are rarely heard, like the one for “Isn’t it Romantic.” This is yet another pleasure of an evening with Maude Maggart.
Ms. Maggart, who recorded an album of dream songs some years ago, read from a letter composer Hugh Martin wrote to her about her dream theme “while he was alive.” The letter was filled with song recommendations, all but one of which she passed on. Ms. Maggart is at times very funny, with great timing.
A medley of lullabies comprised what Ms. Maggart humorously described as “the three faces of Cinderella,” a delicious concoction of a Disney Cinderella song, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” (Mack David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston), Sondheim’s “On the Steps of the Palace” from Into the Woods, and “In My Own Little Corner” from the 1957 television musical Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. She sang with exquisite timing and phrasing. As part of this segment, she included a song cut from the show Frozen, “True Love” (Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez were both present at this performance).
Ms. Maggart relayed a marvelous story she learned from Michael Feinstein about perpetually stoned lyricist Marshall Barer’s acid-induced lyrics “Antigua,” a bossa nova by Antonio Carlos Jobim. As “Lost in Wonderland,” the lyrics are very much in out of Alice in Wonderland.
With her father watching via livestream from California, “My Father” (Judy Collins) took on a special poignancy. (The senior Maggart actually joined his daughter on stage recently when she performed this show at The Gardenia in Hollywood.) Ms. Maggart, who once told an interviewer that “Nobody knows I’m a dancer” and studied ballet and jazz dance for years, gave a hint of that training with a little ballet mid-song.
“Over the Rainbow” (Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg) is one of those great songs that’s too often ruined by over-singing and vocal gymnastics. In Ms. Maggart’s hands, it was understated, reaching the delicate beauty of the song as she returned it to its original sweet innocence. Towards the end, she merged this into a medley with “Look to the Rainbow” (Burton Lane/Yip Harburg), a waltz from Finian’s Rainbow.
For a finale of “Rainbow Connection” (Kenny Ascher/Paul Williams) from The Muppet Movie, also a waltz, Ms. Maggart asked the audience to sing along. We obliged, joining her rainbow dream. A sustained standing ovation garnered an encore of the very sweet “I Dream too Much” (Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields).
This was a positively dreamy evening of masterful storytelling and singing by Maude Maggart. Here’s hoping she makes it back to New York sooner than later!
Photos: Matt Baker
Maude Maggart: Here Come the Dreamers took place at October 16, Birdland Jazz, 315 West 44th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues (www.birdlandjazz.com).
