By all accounts, Fred Barton has been one of the New York theater and cabaret scene’s most accomplished musicians and performers since breaking in as the original arranger/pianist and cast member for Forbidden Broadway 30 years ago. He’s been a highly successful orchestrator, composer and conductor, who will be making his debut at Carnegie Hall on October 14 with his orchestrations for the New York Pops’ Irving Berlin concert. In August, Barton was musical director for Shana Farr’s Julie Andrews tribute show at the Metropolitan Room, one of the most lush-sounding and tightly orchestrated cabaret gigs I’ve heard this year. Suffice to say, the guy is top-drawer stuff.

So, when I heard Barton was staging a nine-piece “Broadway Band” cabaret concert at the Metropolitan Room (à la Terese Genecco’s “Little Big Band” shows at Iridium, only a lot less Rat-Packy), I wasn’t going to miss it. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t love it.

After opening with a cute but vocally erratic “Overture,” featuring snippets of classic Jule Styne songs, Barton offered Cole Porter’s “Please Don’t Monkey with Broadway.” But while the number gave the band—featuring three woodwinds and three horns—a chance to shine right out of the gate, Barton’s vocals on this song and on the following, “The Woman for the Man” (Charles Strouse/Lee Adams from It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman), were jaw-droppingly grating. While such a description may sound a bit cliché, it’s accurate because, as Barton maneuvered his way through each song, my jaw literally dropped, I’m sure more out of surprise than anything else. Before singing “Woman for the Man,” he related how Jack Cassidy, who performed the number in the original production, often played the handsome, loveable sleazebag, but Fred’s interpretation was neither suave nor subtle—and a bit too over the top.

Thankfully, he didn’t wait long to bring out one of his two guest singers, his friend of more than 30 years, Karen Wilder, who immediately sank her teeth into Fred’s brassy, swinging arrangement of “Meantime” (Robert Allen/Al Stillman). After she started “My Dream for Tomorrow,” from the musical Over Here! (The Sherman Brothers), Fred joined in for what became a hopping big-band duet.

But the show’s momentum flagged again when Barton went solo on Bob Merrill’s “Look At ’Er” (from New Girl in Town), while disconcertingly conducting a band that never overwhelmed the tight confines of the Metropolitan Room. In keeping with his “Thinks You’re Gonna Love It” theme, Fred later sang the fairly obscure “What’s the Matter with Me” (Sabelle Breer/Curt Frasca) and Frank Loesser’s “Down the Stairs, Out the Door.” One has to commend Barton for wanting to expose audiences to some relatively unknown old Broadway show tunes. I mean, you could create a hit show just from Cole Porter songs that were either unpublished or cut from shows and films. (It’s been done!) But if you’re going to offer such songs, the singing must elevate them with all the interpretive color and subtlety a performer can muster.

Not that Barton didn’t have any moments at the microphone: His bouncy duet with young, tall and rocker-handsome Jesse Luttrell on “Penniless Bums,” Styne/Merrill’s song about failing musicians (from Sugar), was great fun, while Fred’s best solo of the night was “Don’t Be Anything Less” (Larry Grossman/Hal Hackady) from Snoopy: The Musical, sung in a staccato that suits his voice well. The set’s other highlights included Luttrell absolutely nailing “Make Someone Happy,” and later elevating “The People in My Life,” a Jule Styne/Bob Merrill number cut from Sugar, from just an okay melody into a compelling listen. Wilder’s star turn of the evening was on “Mr. Wonderful,” during which she conveyed the bearing and style of a classic big band singer of the ’40s, and which featured a wonderful trumpet solo from Kenny Lavender.

Given Barton and Wilder’s longstanding friendship, it was fitting that the show’s penultimate number was the Allie Wrubel/Charles Newman standard “Why Don’t We Do This More Often,” but the song title also begged the question of whether Barton should stage similar shows in the future. The answer is a resounding “Yes!,” provided Fred relegates himself mainly to musical direction and arranging, brings in a few more guest singers and compiles a more compelling set list. Then he could really have something an audience will love.

Fred Barton is scheduled to appear monthly at the Metropolitan Room through 2012.

Stephen Hanks
Cabaret Scenes
September 18, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org