Amra-Faye Wright enjoys a lovely voice and an appealing stage presence; an animated songster, theatrical and expressive with her songs.  Wait, there’s more.  She’s good-looking, stylishly attired and self-assured.  Here’s a performer who well could provide a standard for a modern supper club chanteuse.

Born in South Africa, Wright has been peripatetic. In twenty-five years, we were told, she relocated twenty-four times and, having sampled the world, recently became a U.S. citizen.  The globetrotting clearly contributed to Wright’s facility with a variety of tongues.  Her numbers included lyrics in Afrikaans, Italian and Japanese, as well as French and German.

Sitting back and watching Wright from our table at Feinsteins at Loews Regency, I was taken back to the heyday of the posh New York clubs and their memorable headliners – the Plaza’s Persian Room, the Cotillion Room at the Hotel Pierre, the Waldorf’s Wedgwood Room, El Morocco, Le Ruban Bleu.  I felt I could have been at any one of them, as I took in Amra-Faye Wright on stage at Feinstein’s.

Mark Hummel, Wright’s Musical Director and pianist, with the assistance of bass and drums, provided tasteful backing and consistently excellent arrangements to Wright’s varied and international song list, from Charles Aznevour to Django Rhinehart.  Her banter was both appropriate and brief, even while centered on that most hazardous topic, the performer’s autobiography.  Wright is very aware such patter risks being tedious, and whimsically quipped, “Perhaps only a mother wants to hear it.”

There were a few less than perfect spots, but they were brief and only highlighted how very polished were Wright and her show.  One number was mostly lost at the very opener, when the band overshadowed the vocals. (A talk with the drummer, her husband, should set things straight in the future.) And Wright’s theater background surfaced once or twice, when she temporarily lost contact with the audience by singing over their heads.  But that hardly had any effect on my genuine enthusiasm for this captivating songbird, a contemporary match to the memorable nightclub luminaries of decades ago.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
April 27, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org