Add my name to the list of reviewers who have come under the seductive spell of 2010 Bistro Award winner and nominee for this year’s Female Debut MAC Award, doe-eyed Danielle Grabianowski.

She remained true to her show’s title and, like a young, blushing spring bride with cascading curls and pretty dress to match, dished out a mélange of “old and new, borrowed and blues” songs, all of which perfectly suited her eclectic musical sensibilities.

For example, Fred Fisher and Billy Rose’s 1928 hit “I’d Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Be Happy with Somebody Else)” was coupled with the more contemporary Regina Spektor’s “Summer in the City” and it worked! Her Maude Maggart-esque waif-like tremolo was equally effective on other songs from the Depression era like Jay Gorney and E.Y. Harburg’s “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?,” Try a Little Tenderness” (Woods/Campbell and Connelly) and Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh’s  “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” (including verse). Where Maggart and mentor, Andrea Marcovicci, use their hands for dramatic effect, with Grabianowski, it’s all about the eyes! She can be devilish or demure, innocent or firey depending on the mood of the song and her specific point of view.

She handled two additional contemporary odes, to haunted heartbreak and lost love respectively, with great emotional depth and solid vocal technique. Admittedly, Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)’s “Ghost” was somewhat "out there" and difficult to follow, but Amanda McBroom’s “The Portrait” was delivered perfectly and was extremely moving. Her duets with musical soul mate and fellow Buffalonian, Nate Buccieri, were also winsome and entertaining! Buccieri provided such enthusiastic support to all her hooting, howling, cooing and cajoling that together they proved they “got a really good thing goin’ on!”

Lynn DiMenna
Cabaret Scenes
April 7, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org