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Once in a while, you find yourself in the presence of talent so overwhelming that all you can do is sit slack-jawed and awestruck. Just such an experience happened to me at Quality Hill Playhouse on Friday night. I had to remind myself a couple of times to close my mouth as I leaned forward listening to, nay, experiencing Marilyn Maye, wanting to catch every breath, every nuanced note, every subtle rhythm of sound. It was an unbelievably inspiring evening that had only a very small part to do with the fact that Marilyn Maye released her first album well before I was born. That high-steppin’, song-beltin’ dame has entered her eighth decade, and she appears to be nowhere near retirement either in spirit or in voice.

Maye’s weeklong appearance at Quality Hill Playhouse follows the pattern of her cabaret performances around the country and she is accompanied by a trio of standouts: Ted Hubbard on bass, Jim Eklof on drums, and the phenomenal Tedd Firth on piano. For two solid hours, without intermission, they held the audience entranced with their takes on hits of the Great American Songbook.

Calling Maye a jazz singer is not exactly accurate, nor is it quite right to call her pop singer; she is a vocal stylist with a jazz feel and a rock-and-roll personality. Her love of the American song so clearly motivates her musicianship that one can hardly imagine anyone else singing these tunes that we already know so well.

Most of the evening’s first half was devoted to the songs of Johnny Mercer, adapted from her own program “Mercer the Maye Way.” Maye does unexpected but appropriate things with these familiar tunes. For example, her “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” eschews Bing Crosby’s macho beat. Instead, in Maye’s voice, it has a smooth, delicate, romantic pace with just a hint of sultriness. Not that she can’t rock the house: you have never heard Lerner and Loewe’s “On the Street Where You Live” as she and Tedd Firth can play it: no dainty love ballad there, just pure heart-pounding, foot-tapping jazz.

Her Mercer selections ran the gamut from “Moon River” to “G. I Jive” to a breathtaking “Skylark,” and in between, Maye charmed her audience with stories of the songs, her friendship with the composers and the highlights in her long career.

Following her Mercer tribute, Maye took to Broadway, joining “On the Street Where You Live” with “Wouldn’t it Be Loverly,” a series of down and jazzy arrangements from Guys and Dolls, and the evening’s piece de resistance: songs from Hello Dolly. Maye is a perfect Dolly Levi: she has the chutzpah and the sass; there was pure joy in her “Hello Dolly” and not a little bit of sly self-observation in “Before the Parade Passes By.”

Maye knows how to read a lyric; she dares you to make an investment in what she says, not just in how she says it. She can do jazz scat with the best of them, but she left much of the extensive compositional improvisation to Firth and the band, who provided the perfect musical complement to Maye’s lyric commitment. That commitment was on display especially in Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here,” the emotional climax of the evening.

As she concluded with Jerry Herman’s “The Best of Times” and “It’s Today,” Marilyn Maye reminded us of the true performer’s transcendent power, and few people could leave that theatre not changed by the experience.

REVIEW:
Marilyn Maye: Her Party at the Playhouse
Quality Hill Playhouse
Friday, October 19, 2010
Runs through November 7, 2010
For more information visit http://www.qualityhillplayhouse.com/

By Sarah Young

Classical and Musical Theatre Contributor

Sarah Young is a freelance writer and performer in opera, theatre, choral and musical theatre. She has been seen locally with Wichita Grand Opera, Kansas City Symphony Chorus, Kansas City Civic Opera, Lawrence Community Theatre, Chestnut Fine Arts Center and in other local venues.  She studied voice at the University of Kansas, and has been trained in artist programs at Indiana University, Aspen Opera Theatre and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.