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Music Review: Honoring Karen Carpenter With A Dollop Of Boy GeorgeWho would imagine that the steady, mildly wistful voice of Karen Carpenter would be anybody’s muse, much less a primary inspiration for a supple Scottish tenor with Broadway credentials? But at Tuesday’s opening-night performance of his three-week engagement at the Oak Room in the Algonquin Hotel, Euan Morton went out of his way to pay tribute to his idol, who died 25 years ago last month. G. Paul Burnett/The New York TimesEuan Morton at the Oak Room on Tuesday night. Growing up, he recalled, he sang along with Carpenters records. A high point of Tuesday’s show was his version of “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” — one of Ms. Carpenter’s earliest forays into pre-rock music. Only after he made the connection was the influence discernible, and it had more to do with sound production than with personality. Mr. Morton’s timbre is a hybrid of Carpenter and Boy George, whom he portrayed in the short-lived Broadway musical “Taboo.” But lacking Carpenter’s unearthly calm and Boy George’s marzipan sweetness, he is his own man. Ingenuous, playful and endearing, he effuses a boyish charm along with copious perspiration. In clubs less staid than the Oak Room his sets include more rock ’n’ roll, some of which would have been welcome. His new show, “Here and Now,” includes no material from “Taboo,” and only one song (Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”) from his solo album, “NewClear.” Mostly, the mood was upbeat. Mr. Morton was accompanied by a trio — Bryan Reeder on piano, Calvin Crosby on bass and Will Clark on percussion — whose support was strictly functional. “Here and Now” is an agreeable self-portrait, in which Mr. Morton acknowledges his Scottish roots with “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose,” an 18th-century tune with lyrics by Robert Burns, and his British background with a breezy rendition of Noël Coward’s “Matelot.” He trips lightly through Stephen Sondheim’s “No One Is Alone,” one of several war horses taken at an unusually brisk pace. “You Go to My Head” bounces on a light Latin groove similar to the beat propelling Smokey Robinson’s recent recording. Mr. Morton bore down only once on Tuesday with his intense, insightful version of “Hallelujah.” An anguished autopsy of a relationship that deteriorates into an emotional shootout, it revealed that Mr. Morton, when he chooses, can go deep. Euan Morton appears through March 29 at the Oak Room in the Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th Street, Manhattan; (212) 419-9331, algonquinhotel.com. Tag CloudExternal InformationAdditional InformationMusic: A Hybridist Jamming With the World...Music Review: Composing on the Spot, With Help From a Master... Music Review | Michael Mayer - Gui Boratto: Making the Minimum Sound Like More... For All the Rock in China... Where Am I?News Main Page - Business - Music Review: Honoring Karen Carpenter With A Dollop Of Boy George |
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