“It’s a new year. Why not try something new?” Marilyn Maye said. And so she did, unrolling a program she had initiated earlier in Kansas City but hadn’t yet brought to New York. It was Marilyn By Request, presented over three January nights at the Metropolitan Room. For each show, cabaret-goers, when making their reservations, were invited to select songs from Maye’s repertoire. The result: each evening became a semi-spontaneous, non-stop musical romp.

Cheering by a packed house began the moment she walked through the entrance curtain, singing, beaming into each booth as she passed, nodding to friends at the tables. Circling the room, she ended center stage, to a thunder of welcoming applause.

And she was off. With lively Billy Stritch as pianist and musical director, and Tom Hubbard on bass and Ray Marchina on percussion, the music flowed, starting, appropriately, with “Let the Good Times Roll,” followed by “I Love Being Here With You” and a mellow “Old Friends.” A thematic medley followed: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “That Face” and “I Love to See You Smile.” And so the evening sped forward, with Maye, with unflagging energy and spirit, performing some two dozen songs, from a tender, jazz-tinged “Skylark” and “Lazy Afternoon” to the lament “Guess Who I Saw Today” to an upbeat “Mountain Greenery” (with Stritch chiming in). Marilyn Maye’s closer, moving and appropriate: “I’m Still Here.” Her encore, two hours later, aptly describing a joyous evening: “The Best of Times.”

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
Janaury 4, 2012
www.cabaretscenes.org