Early autumn brings New York alive again: the air turns brisk, the leaves begin to show their fall colors, and, best of all for fans of the Great American Songbook, Barbara Carroll returns to The Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room with her Sunday Jazz Brunches. Her clear, rippling piano work, her imaginative and playful variations on the melodies, sometimes embellished humorously with classical references, her clear speak-singing of the lyrics illuminating their stories and the emotions within them – all are elegantly, warmly and joyously served up – and with great French toast.

With Sean Smith on bass standing to her left, Carroll offered classics ranging from work by Jerome Kern (“I Woke Up with the Birds This Morning”), Rodgers and Hart (“My Funny Valentine”) Burton Lane and Ralph Freed (“How About You?”), the Gershwins’ (“They Can’t Take That Away from Me”) to Billy Strayhorn (a rippling “Something to Live For” and “Lotus Blossom”) and Dave Frishberg (“Do You Miss New York?,” sung standing, accompanied only by Smith on bass). Featured, too, was a medley of songs with dancing as their theme, including Rodgers and Hart’s “Dancing on the Ceiling,” which incorporated piano phrasing in the style of J.S. Bach.  Her concluding number brought the Songbook up to date with Stephen Sondheim’s “Old Friend.” To its lyric line – the question, “are we or are we unique?” – the enthusiastic applause and beaming smiles of the Oak Room’s full-house audience gave the answer: Barbara Carroll surely is.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
October 16, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org