When you listen to Tom Wopat sing Tedd Firth's brooding arrangement of "And I Love Her" (Lennon/McCartney), you won't be thinking of Luke Duke of TV's Dukes of Hazzard, or Sinatra, Bennett or Annie Get Your Gun. Strolling into the Oak Room, crooning "Last Night When I Was Young," (Arlen/Harburg) a cappella, Wopat showed a man of casual ease, with a distinctive sound of soft swing and jazzy edges, jacked up with a breathy growl. A vibrant trio heightened the jazz input, including David Finck on bass, Bob Malach on tenor sax, and musical director/pianist, Tedd Firth, an invaluable musician with a thousand ways to provide a singer with individualized distinction.

A trained baritone and established actor (Glengarry Glen Ross), Wopat delivered a generous lineup of tunes, mostly standards but with a few additions he feels belong in the Great American Songbook. His songs show a deceptive introspection, and many you will hear in a new way. In "That's Life" (Kay and Gordon), for example, a thoughtful philosophizing substitutes for the familiar confident, swing, a decided veering from Sinatra.

The sine qua non of cabaret, intimacy and communication, are built into Wopat's easy patter as well as his musical renditions with twists of jazz fillips and word stress. In a lightly swinging "But Not For Me" (the Gershwins), he finished the verse with a scoffing, "...It's all – HA! – bananas." This was a breakup that he had very little trouble accepting. Succumbing more to his tender side was his rendition of Judy Collins' "Since You Asked." Wopat is a good enough actor to give a laid-back wry spin to Dave Frishberg's "You Would Rather Have the Blues," and a fine enough stylist to keep speed with the trio in "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" (Woods).

"Cool" is the temperature of Tom Wopat but he brings a definite heated excitement to the Oak Room lineup.

Tom Wopat appears at the Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room from Mar. 10 to 21.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
March 10, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org