Singer Jeff Harnar
Sterling singer Jeff Harnar is so genial a cabaret host, with his smiling gracious welcome and attitude of happy to be here with you and the songs right this minute, you feel he should also be paid as the maitre d’ of the supper club where he’s performing. Veteran Jeff is as much a cabaret standby as the sophisticated songs of Cole Porter or rich Broadway songs from the period when classics like "The Sound of Music," "West Side Story," and "Gypsy" came along. So, it’s a natural match that he’d be singing Porter these days or any day, and revisiting Broadway’s goldmines. Recent returns to his home base of New York City reminded Big Apple-ites of his consummate skills before he packed his sheet music for travels to New Hope, Pennsylvania June 6 and 7 (Harlan’s Cabaret) and then Palm Beach, Florida (The Colony Hotel).
At The Metropolitan Room in Manhattan, he treated Cole Porter songs like old friends he knew well and wanted his new friends (the audience) to fall in love with. He knows them well, but doesn’t take these old friends for granted. He sings them with a delight in the clever word play, taking care with slight pauses and gestures and facial expressions to accent the rhymes (unified/bride/slightly fried), musical line and word play, as in, "He’s appealing, he’s appalling, he’s a pollywog, he’s a paragon, he’s a Popeye, he’s a panic, he’s a pip, he’s de-lovely" as the music is decorated and underlined smartly his longtime musical director/pianist Alex Rybeck. It’s a riot, it’s a rhyme fest, it is ripened, it’s the writing that is right on, it is wry, it is Rybeck.
The act is smartly paced and put together thanks to by Jeff’s longtime association with his talented director, Sara Louise Lazarus. It’s fleet and balanced and highly professional, polished and typical of this performer’s work. From the opening romantic strains of the classic "Night And Day" heard over the mic in the darkness before he enters to the pre-goodnight challenge of rattling off the zillion rhymes of "Can-Can," he "can can" do no wrong And that includes including "You Can Do No Wrong," a less often performed ballad Judy Garland sang in the film "The Pirate" that never caught on the way other Porter numbers did. (It’s the Porter pick from his most recent CD, "Dancing In the Dark," on PS Classics.) The composer-lyricist’s material is hardly a new treasure chest for Jeff who has delved into it before over the years. Even if you didn’t know that, you’d sense the attitude of a tour guide who wasn’t in his first days on the job but still enjoying the gig and is well informed.
Supremely confident and at home, Jeff glides through the canon with seeming ease. He lavishes care on the material and brings an audience into it, as if he’s saying "Isn’t this witty and wonderful?" or "Isn’t this ballad gorgeous? Let’s luxuriate in it together." Sometimes, he does literally point out and point up the virtues of the craft with his patter. When he’s floating through a love song, you don’t get the sense that he’s getting lost in it personally or using it to work out his demons. It’s a show-he’s showing the songs. Unlike some cabaret, he’s not wallowing in emotion’s muddier waters to reinvent the material or convince us that he’s living each moment. This may make the show less involving or too glossy and glib for some who want to go there and weep and wonder and wish together. The agenda is not to share the performer’s life experience and philosophy. No, this particular show is really about the material. There are some brief but effective insights into Porter, such as the reality of him being married to a woman he cared about but being sexually involved with men and how that colored his view. Nothing is belabored, and the historical facts are not told in lengthy speeches or professorial tones. A quick reference to Jimmy Durante’s professional intersection with the writer lets Jeff go into a Durante impression that is affectionate and great fun. Jeff sprinkles some information about like a merry cook who wants you to occasionally appreciate a quick taste or quick mention of an ingredient in order to better appreciate and savor the flavor of the items in the banquet.
Next: Another Harnar Show Re-visited
see www.JeffHarnar.com for more information on the singer. For future events at the venues mentioned, see www.92y.org and www.MetropolitanRoom.com.
