Cabaret Scenes CD Review

Cooking up a mix of comedy and love songs, Carla Gordon is a gracious cabaret chef. Ingredients are nice (a well-phrased “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You”), spice (a winking “Makin’ Whoopee”), vice (a prison blues spoof), and Brice (a trio of Fanny Brice’s numbers). The voice on The Voice in Your Heart is not a big, belting one. It’s modest and warm, suitable for cabaret’s intimacy. A critic in these pages herself (how tricky reviewing a reviewer), the art of direct communicative singing she appreciates is displayed. I suspect her pet peeve is slurring singers, because she overcompensates when leading by example; the over-articulation sometimes feels labored and distracting with final consonants. But in the final analysis, there’s some enjoyable work, especially the comic turns: a lyric-tweaked “Purple People Eater,” has the alien becoming a cabaret star. “I Don’t Want to Get Thin” is a big, fat laugh.

Rob Lester
Cabaret Scenes
May 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org



	Carla Gordon The Voice in Your Heart
Cooking up a mix of comedy and love songs, Carla Gordon is a gracious cabaret chef. Ingredients are nice (a well-phrased “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You”), spice (a winking “Makin’ Whoopee”), vice (a prison blues spoof), and Brice (a trio of Fanny Brice’s numbers). The voice on The Voice in Your Heart is not a big, belting one. It’s modest and warm, suitable for cabaret’s intimacy. A critic in these pages herself (how tricky reviewing a reviewer), the art of direct communicative singing she appreciates is displayed. I suspect her pet peeve is slurring singers, because she overcompensates when leading by example; the over-articulation sometimes feels labored and distracting with final consonants. But in the final analysis, there’s some enjoyable work, especially the comic turns: a lyric-tweaked “Purple People Eater,” has the alien becoming a cabaret star. “I Don’t Want to Get Thin” is a big, fat laugh. Rob Lester Cabaret Scenes May 2008 www.cabaretscenes.org