With a room full of admirers and a song list full of popular hits, Jack Jones is back at the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room.  Snow-topped and smiling, the veteran vocalist exudes the confidence and charm of a singer who knows his strengths, knows his songs and knows his audience.

There’s plenty of strength in Jones’s voice when he chooses to use it, as he early made obvious by a spirited delivery of  “I Am a Singer.” Yet most of the performance was on a more intimate basis as he wandered among the audience with a hand-held microphone and serenaded his listeners in an almost conversational manner.  Some of the songs, such as Joe Young and Fred Ahlert’s “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter” and Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things” were on the charts before Jones was a toddler.

One thing about Jones’s renditions of the long-established hits he favored was true about all his selections: the arrangements were interesting, valid, and his own, rarely duplicating an all-too-familiar version of others.  A prime example was one of the show’s highlights and an early hit recording of Jones himself: “The Impossible Dream” was but a distant cousin to Richard Kiley’s recognizable version.

Not all the songs were as well known as those mentioned, but none of them suffered from inattention.  One special choice was Michel Legrand and Marilyn and Alan Bergman’s “On My Way to You.”  Addressing his wife in the audience, Jones confessed to always getting tears in his eyes when he sings it.  It was their wedding song.  His ability within a number to swing from a mellifluous baritone to a falsetto closing with no obvious break was notable.

I believe it was Jones’s friend, Tony Bennett, who once remarked that when he was a young performer, a veteran entertainer told him it would take ten years for him to master just the right way to walk on stage.  Jones has been singing for fifty years-plus.  He has certainly mastered his craft.

Mike Renzi was Musical Director and pianist, aided by Chris Colangelo on bass and Kendall Kay on drums.

Jack Jones is at the Oak Room through November 13th.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
October 27, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org