Chuck Lavazzi’s cabaret debut was a most winning collection of sentiment, romance, comedy and pathos in songs drawn from the vaudeville era and refreshing change from the usual Great American Songbook fare.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that Mr. Lavazzi is an old friend and colleague. I am familiar with his deep love for the music of that era—and with his real expertise in it. The evening is imbued with that love and that detailed knowledge. His delight in the material was quite contagious.

A very strong virtue of the evening was its “book”—an element that is too often weak in our local cabaret presentations. Mr. Lavazzi is a good and practiced writer, and that showed in the verbal “woof” that interweaved the musical “warp” of the program—and in the successful structure of the whole evening.
His selections represented the whole spectrum of vaudeville songs, from the purely sentimental to the bright and comic. There were paeans to the new technology of the day, such as the automobile (“Get Out and Get Under”) and the cinema (“Take Your Girlie to the Movies”). There were some slightly naughty ones, like “Last Night on the Back Porch,” as well as songs which are identified with mega-stars of the day like Al Jolson and Bert Williams. One of the loveliest items on the program was “After the Ball,” in which Music Director Neal Richardson joined in to sing an overlapping “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” The pace was brisk, the tone varied, and the mood most congenial.

Steve Callahan
Cabaret Scenes
March 26, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org