After 45 Years, Is This Finally The End For The Generals? Few military dictatorships have proved as eccentric and resilient as the shadowy junta that used force yesterday to reimpose its authority over Burma.... Read Full Article Music Review | Sunburned Hand Of The Man: Spooky Rock, Noise And No Apologies This band has been around for 10 years, scratching out a name for itself in outsider-rock festivals, and it carries an edge of ragged, freaky attitude.... Read Full Article Vote For President In Lebanon Delayed After the Lebanese parliament failed to muster a quorum, the vote for president was postponed until Oct. 23.... Read Full Article The Carbon Calculus A proposal in Congress to put a price tag on greenhouse-gas emissions could overturn the economics of energy.... Read Full Article UBS Records A Big Write-Down And Sells A Stake The investment bank became the latest to seek a lifeline from the East as it wrote down $10 billion in mortgage-related assets.... Read Full Article |
Music Review | Keely Smith: What Happens In Las Vegas Stays In Swingin? MemoriesShowbiz longevity has its perks. Whoever has the good luck to remain the last one standing gets to tell the uncensored version of what life was really like in the imperial playground. As the golden age of Las Vegas recedes into the gin-scented mists of Rat Pack lore, that eternal tomboy Keely Smith, now 79, is the one left standing. She is the kind of garrulous star witness dear to the hearts of showbiz historians and gossip mongers. Now appearing at the Café Carlyle, the queen of swing, as she is now nicknamed, dispenses just enough nuggets of insider dish to whet your appetite for a marathon. As this still-boy-crazy tattletale alludes to all-night parties and juicy hookups, she looks back with few regrets. Hers is no sob story ending in redemption. Las Vegas in 58 or thereabouts was fun, fun, fun. We should have been there. At Tuesdays opening-night show Ms. Smith and her seven-member band performed variations of the same set she has been doing for the last decade. As befits the staid Café Carlyle, the balance between hot swingers associated with Louis Prima and ballads from her early albums, tilted more toward the sedate. At Feinsteins at the Regency, her regular stomping ground until now, swingers dominated. Ms. Smiths voice remains in reasonably good shape, but in the two years since I saw her last, signs of fatigue have set in. The evenings strongest performance was a quiet medley of When Day Is Done and When Your Lover Has Gone. The band, not the singer, pumped most of the excitement into Prima signature songs like Jump, Jive and Wail and Just a Gigolo. Those arrangements still define the galvanizing moment when swing and rock n roll fused in the music of the two Louis (Prima and Jordan), and the saxophone began to honk and the guitar to twang. But the glue holding the show together was less musical than verbal. After 65, Ms. Smith observed wryly, you can say anything you please and get away with it. She did, within limits. Keely Smith appears through April 28 at Café Carlyle, Carlyle Hotel, 35 East 76th Street, Manhattan, (212) 744-1600. Tag CloudExternal InformationAdditional InformationMusic Review: After a Glitch, on the Road to California...Return of the Rock Lobsters... James J. Fuld, Collector of Rare Music Scores, Dies at 91... Music Review | Grand Tour Orchestra: A New Ensemble Surveys Classical’s Oft-Igno... Where Am I?News Main Page - Business - Music Review | Keely Smith: What Happens In Las Vegas Stays In Swingin? Memories |
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