The Fabulous Equinox Orchestra
The Fabulous Equinox Orchestra
Iguana, NYC, July 8, 2015
Reviewed by Peter Leavy for Cabaret Scenes
Photo: Geoff L. Johnson
For anyone who loved the era of the big bands, seeing The Fabulous Equinox Orchestra at Iguana was a pleasure on two scores, three if you include their outstanding guest that night. Score one: The orchestra concentrates on selections from the Great American Songbook, old friends of many of us that come to visit too seldom these days, and—score two—the instrumentalists knew the material and handled it well indeed. A pleasing opener by Jeremy Davis on his tenor sax led into Clay Johnson’s swinging vocal “A Wonderful Day Like Today.” When we heard the lyric to “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” it opened up the nostalgia gates and they stayed that way throughout the show, with “Crying” and “Save the Last Dance for Me,” among others.
But the cap to an otherwise very pleasing night was—score three—their guest: the truly lovely Gabrielle Stravelli. Her entrancing “That Old Black Magic” and upbeat version of “The Lady Is a Tramp” were matched— and then some— soon thereafter when she joined with Equinox’s Johnson on “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”
A not-surprising admission: I’ve been a big band aficionado from my pre-teen days. The radio was an easy access to the best of them—Glenn Miller, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey and the like—and if sleep was not high on one’s list, there were the late night shows, The Milkman’s Matinee and The Make Believe Ballroom, to entertain you into the wee hours. With the radio, as the night wore on, you could cross the country from supper club to supper club, from the Hotel Edison’s Piccadilly Lounge in New York, to the Glen Island Casino on Long Island Sound, to the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago, and even later to the bands playing out in Denver, “one mile closer to the stars,” as they always introduced it. For the ninety minutes or so of their set, The Fabulous Equinox Orchestra, Davis’s tenor sax, Johnson’s vocals, and their charming guest, Gabrielle Stravelli, provided this listener with a solid bit of much-relished time travel.
Category: Cabaret Reviews, New York City, New York City Cabaret Reviews
