Barbara Carroll returns for her fourth year at the Algonquin Oak Room for Sunday brunch and Monday evening jazz. Miss her and you miss a Manhattan institution.

The elegant Miss Carroll has her own sound and a span of moods -- refinement, joy, wit, and thoughtfulness. Playing a full piano, her versatility reaches across the room with nimble fingers and strong harmonic chords. The purpose of her vocals is to tell a story, and with an appreciation of good lyrics as well as good melodies, she continues to explore new inroads into the tunes.

While Carroll routinely brings to her audiences the theatre music of Rodgers, Kern, and Sondheim, it is always fun when she returns to her bebop roots, delving into the complexities of the bop harmonies. In this show, she tells about coming to the legendary 52nd Street in the 1940s and 1950s, where jazz reigned as fiercely as on Bourbon Street. All the greats came to "The Street" in those days, and that included young Barbara Carroll, who was booked as "Bobbie Carroll;" jazzwomen were not usually booked for jazz gigs. In this show, backed by bass pal, Sean Smith, she salutes Charlie Parker with "Billie's Bounce," a brief foray into a difficult jazz genre, with strong rhythm.

Carroll examines her song selections from every side; "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" begins meditative, turning interpretive and finally ends as richly sweeping as a 1940's film soundtrack. She is touching with "You Must Believe in Spring," illuminative with "Something Good", and joyous with "I Won't Dance," percolating with snatches from other Gershwin film tunes. An outstanding medley of Jerome Kern includes "The Way You Look Tonight" and "All the Things You Are," which is poignantly lingering, light, and a tad moody. The tangy lyrics of "Remind Me" definitively remind listeners of the razor-sharp Dorothy Parker tongue. Carroll shares some pungent quotes about the famed Oak Room denizens including Parker, Benchley and Connolly.

Barbara Carroll continues to deliver the technique and beauty of jazz, from the demanding bebop to the fragility of Sondheim's waltz, "You Must Meet My Wife." "The Street" closed its clubs years ago, but the Algonquin Hotel continues with Barbara Carroll, the best of the best.

The Algonquin's Oak Room brings Barbara Carroll's Sunday Jazz Brunch on Sundays from 12-1 pm, Piano and Vocals at 2 pm, and Mondays at 8 o'clock.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
September 16, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org