Jim Caruso, Jane Monheit, Billy Stritch: Hollywoodland: Songs from the Silver Screen

Peter Haas | November 26, 2014

Jim Caruso, Jane Monheit and Billy Stritch

Hollywoodland: Songs from the Silver Screen

Birdland, NYC, 11/24/14

Reviewed by Peter Haas for Cabaret Scenes

Many of the American Songbook’s most beloved songs were created for the movies. Some two dozen of these were given a sophisticated, merry musical outing at Birdland this Thanksgiving season, thanks to the talents of Jim Caruso, Jane Monheit and Billy Stritch—each a solo star and now, melding their music, creators of a highly professional, smartly paced and sweet-spirited evening of delightful music.

Backed throughout by Neal Miner on bass and Rick Montalbano on drums, the trio brought a collection of favorite movie songs back to life. Among them: ”You Are My Lucky Star” and “You Ought to Be in Pictures,” with the three performers harmonizing; Monheit’s moving, crystal-clear “The Boy Next Door,” “Good Morning” and a Disney medley of “Whistle While You Work” and “Give a Little Whistle”; the threesome in a merry and upbeat “Gotta Have Me Go with You,” from A Star Is Born; the 1920s’ “Avalon,” featuring Monheit and Stritch in an arrangement by Aaron Weinstein; and numbers from The Wizard of Oz, including Monheit’s yearning “Over the Rainbow” and Caruso’s wistful “If I Only Had a Brain.”

A highlight of the evening was a medley of songs that had been introduced by Fred Astaire. Among them: “Dancing in the Dark,” in a simple, powerful piano-and-singing solo by Stritch; a jazzy “Cheek to Cheek” by Monheit; a warm “I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man” by Caruso; Stritch and Monheit with “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” and the trio on “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” The finale, in a nod to Thanksgiving’s customary weather (and despite that evening’s unusual mildness), “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”

Hollywoodland, with all its on-stage spontaneity and fun, was clearly thoroughly professional in concept and performance—and a high spot in the season’s cabaret shows.

Tags: A Star Is Born, American Songbook, Billy Stritch, Birdland, cheek to cheek, Dancing in the Dark, Disney, Fred Astaire, Give a Little Whistle, Gotta Have Me Go with You, Great American Songbook, Hollywoodland Songs from the Silver Screen, I Wanna Be a Dancin Man, If I Only Had a Brain, Jane Monheit, Jim Caruso, Let It Snow Let It Snow Let It Snow, Let’s Face the Music and Dance, Neal Miner, Nightclubs, Over the Rainbow, Peter Haas, Rick Montelbano, Songbook, Supper Clubs, Thanksgiving, The Boy Next Door, The Wizard of Oz, They Can’t Take That Away from Me, Whistle While You Work, You Are My Lucky Star, You Ought to Be in Pictures