Nathan Lee Graham is a contemporary artist who uses his own talents to pay homage to stars of an earlier era.

Listening to him sing, one hears distinctive echoes from the past: a little Bobby Short in Graham’s perfect diction and on-stage elegance; some Sammy Davis Jr. in his power ballads; a bit of the Inkspots in his lilting rhythms, plus a whole lot of Eartha Kitt in his kaboodle—her style of spitting our lyrics in quick succession, her piercing stare, her catlike grace of movement.

An extended segment of his show here was devoted to Kitt, whom he described as “my friend, my mentor, my colleague, my inspiration, my American idol.” He did only one out-and-out imitation of her—a spot-on version of  “I Wanna Be Evil” (Lester Judson/Raymond Taylor)—a song he said he had promised her not to do while she was alive; followed by a heartfelt “La Vie en Rose”(Louis Gugliemi) in impeccable French as a salute to her friend, Edith Piaf; Kitt’s arrangement of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”(Yip Harburg/Jay Gorney), in his own powerful tenor voice; and “When It Ends,” Kitt’s song from Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party, in which Graham appeared.

Other than a brief verbal tribute to Kitt, there was little between-songs patter—a minor shortcoming that might have enabled Graham to acknowledge more specifically his other vocal idols.

Graham proved he is an outstanding performer in his own right without the vocal reference points—singing Maltby-Shire’s “What About Today,” tenderly and without affectation, seguing into a sweet “I Fall in Love Too Easily” (Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne) as he gripped the microphone and crooned into it.

Sartorially resplendent in a white jacket with silver trim and a feather in his breast pocket, Graham added a white fedora to sing another Maltby-Shire creation, “Flair,” in what amounted to a personal anthem to his own on-stage persona.  He also scored with “When October Goes,” the Barry Manilow song with Johnny Mercer lyrics that seems to be popping up all over the cabaret repertoire.

He ended the show with a pair of Newley-Bricusse standards:  “The Joker,” whose pounding rhythm gave him a chance to dance his way, Fosse-style, through the audience and offstage before returning for an encore, still in full dance mode, to sing “Once in a Lifetime.”

Graham’s show was directed by Billy Porter, artistic director of Upright Cabaret.  Providing enthusiastic backing for the singer were musical director Christopher Lloyd Bratten on piano, Matty Taylor on bass and Daniel Pouliet on drums.

Elliot Zwiebach
Cabaret Scenes
April 25, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org