Richard Holbrook, his voice light and clear with a sweet tone, is the perfect conduit for the music of Burton Lane. Every note and word was clearly articulated and his joy was contagious. Backed by the Tom Nelson Trio (Nelson, piano, Tom Kirchmer, bass, and Peter Grant, drums), Holbrook’s program pleased on almost every level, from repertoire to repartee.

Burton Lane wrote songs with a slew of partners, including Ira Gershwin (the Gershwins were Lane’s earliest supporters), Alan Jay Lerner, E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, Harold Adamson and Ralph Freed, and composed for Hollywood and Broadway.

Holbrook’s generous program spanned Lane’s career from his earliest film efforts—“Heigh Ho, the Gang’s All Here,” “Your Head on My Shoulder” (Adamson)—to his last Broadway show, Carmelina, from which Holbrook sang the very moving “One More Walk Around the Garden” (Lerner), showing great sensitivity.

Holbrook, of course, presented the big hits, like “Old Devil Moon,” “Look to the Rainbow” and “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?,” the latter maybe needing some more pensiveness. He hammed up “Applause, Applause” (Gershwin), a paean to a performer’s lifeblood.

Biographical tidbits gave the program form, smoothly joining all the aspects of Lane’s prolific career, for which Holbrook’s lovingly intense “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” encore was the perfect epitaph.

Richard Holbrook returns to the Metropolitan Room Sept. 12 & 13.

Joel Benjamin
Cabaret Scenes
August 20, 2012
www.cabaretscenes.org