Steve Sieck, a contemporary singer/songwriter, has been described as a “late bloomer.”  He sang in rock bands as a teenager, wrote pop songs and studied classical music in his twenties, briefly working as a pianist/arranger before giving it up to become a management consultant.  Three decades later, he experienced an epiphany, reconnected with his passion for music, and started to write and sing again.  Over the past few years, Sieck has created a sizable portfolio of songs. This show was his cabaret debut.

Sieck has a friendly and likable stage presence and the audience responded to his accessibility. Armed with an interesting and eclectic program of his own songs and a few well-chosen standards, Sieck opened with “Better Late Than Never,” his first songwriting effort after the long hiatus.  This was one of several songs that addressed the human condition – fragility of life, empathy, frustration, joy and the passage of time.

Two numbers laced with humor were “My Side of Town,” the words suggesting a convincingly logical invitation to “come on over” : “I’ll show you how your life can be a dream…there are many things I want you to see”, and “Party of the Century,” an authentic reminder of the raucous and raunchy days of Studio 54: “ It’s gonna be a blowout for the ages, forget about tomorrow, it’s the Party of the Century.”

One of the most heartfelt songs of the evening was “Crosses on the Roadside,” a tender and moving piece prompted by a visit to the Costa Rican rain forest: “So memories will survive of all the love and joy they brought.”  Karen Thompson joined Sieck for “After Five,” a tale of a budding office romance.  Thompson has a soulful, bluesy voice that blended perfectly with Sieck’s sense of yearning. He was clearly conversant with Porter’s “I Concentrate on You,” Duke Ellington and Bob Russell’s “I Didn’t Know About You” and especially Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean?,” an already poignant song which he endowed with exceptional feeling.

A better team than Rick Jensen and Lina Koutrakos could not have been imagined, Jensen as Sieck’s musical director and Koutrakos as his director.  Besides his extraordinary playing, Jensen is a songwriter, producer and arranger.  A three-time MAC Award winner and a two-time Bistro Award recipient, he played for the late cabaret artist Nancy LaMott for many years.  Koutrakos, another singer/songwriter, performance coach and teacher at the Yale Cabaret Conference, has also garnered MAC and Bistro Awards.

Over the course of the evening, Steve Sieck’s singing became more resonant, sonorous and legato.  His middle range was specially fluid and articulate.  Perhaps his energy and enthusiasm are best explained by his own words in “Better Late Than Never”: “It’s time to share the good things that I can, what might have been has come and gone.”

Jerry Osterberg
Cabaret Scenes
May 9, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org