Hey, you Florida Sunbirds, you're in luck.  Chris Barrett now has a regular Sunday Brunch gig at The Torch, an inviting new cabaret spot in Ft. Lauderdale.  Although Barrett's a well-known lounge pianist in the Miami area, he's not background music here—he's the show and, as in many good supper clubs, the show doesn't begin 'til after the dining is done.

Barrett is one of cabaret's best interpreters of Broadway songs, and his 90-minute show time is all Broadway.  From Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hammerstein to Cy Coleman and Andrew Lloyd Webber (an import to Broadway from across the pond).  Happily, he concentrates on songs that made it to Broadway, skipping the ones that were (often, quite understandably) cut in New Haven.  Not that he offers only the shows' mega-hits: his selections include some of the lesser-known, and Barrett's renditions of them are equally choice.  It's easy to suspect that his performances are never the same. He comes to his shows, he claimed, with a plan of what he'll play and sing, but then he lets the feel of the room steer him to other numbers.

Barrett has a rich baritone that suits most of his numbers well.  And, if he feels it won't, he does caution his listeners tha,t when he takes requests at the end of his show, he occasionally may say, “I don't do that song.”  But he has no apologies to make.  He gives the lyrics of the songs he does sing all the honor they deserve, and his own piano accompaniment is impressive in and of itself.

Chris Barrett will be at Ft. Lauderdale's The Torch through February.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
January 16, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org