With the slightest lift of the eyebrows, most subtle tilt of the head, KT Sullivan communicates her songs with singular understanding. At this point in her career, she is a standard of interpretation.  She does breezy comedy better than almost any singer around, using her expressive face, precise timing and immaculate phrasing and vocal stress. In the witty lyrics of Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s “I Can Cook Too,” her soprano voice lowers to audaciously blare, “Baby, I’m cooking with gas!” In the romantic “It Amazes Me” (Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman), Sullivan sinks into its reverie, her voice slowly relishing the line, “But to see me in his eyes…” the audience leaning forward, caught in the spell.

Through the month of May, KT Sullivan delivers Woman Power with Rhyme, Women & Song, 25 standards all written by women and her standards were high, beginning with a jazz-flavored medley of Kay Swift tunes delivered by Weber and Webber, that’s Musical Director Jon Weber on piano and John Webber on bass.  With amusing anecdotes tucked between, Sullivan delivers almost a collection of songs from Edna B. Pinkard and Andy Razaf’s sassy “Kitchen Man” to the poignant “Where Do You Start?” by Alan and Marilyn Bergman with Johnny Mandel.

The majority of songs came from the most prolific writers, Leigh, Dorothy Fields and Swift, but Sullivan also included fine songs by unfamiliar names like Maria Grever (“What a Difference A Day Made” sung in Spanish), Irene Higgenbotham’s “Good Morning Heartache”(with Dan Fisher and words by Ervin Drake who was in the audience) and Vivien Wolsk (“When the Children Are Gone”).  The latter led into a nifty anecdote about one of Sullivan’s grandchildren.  She then put down the mic for a dry, hilarious, childish plea, “Please Don’t Send Me Down a Baby Brother” (Fields and Arthur Schwartz).

In one of her astute medleys, Sullivan cleverly paired Fields and Jimmy McHugh’s “On the Sunny Side of the Street” with Leigh and Coleman’s “On the Other Side of the Tracks,” a two-handed delivery of determination.  A medley of snippets of 29 more songs closed the show — 29 because, she quipped, that’s her age.

Acknowledging contemporary standards that endure, Sullivan included a Joni Mitchell favorite, “A Case of You.”  And how clever is an encore with the Carole King/Gerry Goffin hit, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”  She then added the sumptuous Fields/Jerome Kern classic, “The Way You Look Tonight,” closing a sparkling, varied program.

KT continues at the Oak Room Tuesdays through Saturdays through May 28.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
May 3, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org