Ron Gartner is a big admirer of Bobby Darin, which he made clear in his West Coast cabaret debut.

In fact, if Darin were alive today and playing the cabaret circuit, this is the show he might be doing —a “greatest hits” array of music which, for the most part, was playing on the radio in the 1950s and 1960s.

Gartner snaps his fingers like Darin and stylizes his songs in his idol’s jazzy, off-handed manner, but the comparison ends there.

Had he perhaps added more dramatic intensity to put the old songs into new contexts or found something different in the lyrics to move the songs into another realm, he might have scored some performance points.  Still, it was nice to hear all those oldies again.

Gartner has been performing for only the last seven years, following a mid-life career change that brought him back to his first love, music.  He began singing at various venues, eventually adding a full orchestra and dancers, none of which would fit onto the small stage at the Gardenia.

So it was just Gartner, accompanist Bill Gulino and a smashing songlist — a little Gershwin, a little Rat Pack tribute, some Perry Como and Ray Charles and, of course, the obligatory Darin.

Gartner’s best song was one of the least known in his set—Larry Graham’s “One in a Million, You”—which he invested with a lot of emotion.  However, it may have been the unfamiliarity of the song to this reviewer that made it such a standout number and therefore more difficult to contrast with the more familiar songs he sang.

It’s also possible Gartner missed the full orchestra or the dancers; or that some of his lack of vocal pizzazz was due to jet-lag, since he had left the East Coast early that morning to do his West Coast show.

As for Gulino, he plays a mean piano.  The communication between singer and accompanist was top-notch, and their admiration for each other was palpable.

In fact, Gartner turned the spotlight over to Gulino often, with instrumental breaks during nearly every song, plus several solos, including a couple of Willie Nelson numbers that proved Gulino’s winning a Nelson sound-alike contest years ago was not a fluke.

Elliot Zwiebach
Cabaret Scenes
April 3, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org