Cabaret Scenes CD Review - Scot Albertson

They don’t come much more earnest than singer Scot Albertson. I imagine that if you attended a wedding where this irony-allergic balladeer entertained with his robust or dewy-eyed proclamations of believing in perfect, undying love, you might be tempted to tap the clergyperson on the shoulder and book the hall. A gay wedding could be in the cards with the noble “I Believe in This Man” (Karen Jacobsen). Where some smell corn, unflinchingly sincere Albertson only finds the sweetly perfumed air of romance and he breathes it in and breathes it out for ready, steady, heady high notes. Duly noted. For him, love is always in bloom like the “Orchids in the Moonlight” of which he sings. Like the Peanuts characters awaiting the non-existent Great Pumpkin, he’ll stay in that moonlight for days, or at least in a moonlight mood, until those orchids bloom (“still my love can never die!” he affirms). The poetically formal language of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “No Other Love” fits him like a tailor-made suit rather than an antique hand-me-down awkwardly worn. Nods to more modern times include a bit of later pop-jazz or updating a line in “I Hear Music” to become “you, my angel, texting me.”

We can sense his joy when he approaches the light and bright tempi and gamely dips his toes in—or wants to tap them—and with fifteen tracks, some levity is in order. Some attempts work better than others; a quaint relic like “Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy” is a fun, if dopey, respite. Nevertheless, he seems most effective and at home in the rush of the lush, mush and flush of falling in everlasting love. Pianist Daryl Kojak, his collaborator on arrangements and production, returns for this fourth CD, sometimes nudging the proceedings into jazzland with musical cohorts, which can make for some strange bedfellowship. Cabaret piano bar favorite Jerry Scott takes the keyboard on three tracks for some simpatico like-mindedness.

Rob Lester
Cabaret Scenes
May 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org



	Scot Albertson With Every Note, A Step
They don’t come much more earnest than singer Scot Albertson. I imagine that if you attended a wedding where this irony-allergic balladeer entertained with his robust or dewy-eyed proclamations of believing in perfect, undying love, you might be tempted to tap the clergyperson on the shoulder and book the hall. A gay wedding could be in the cards with the noble “I Believe in This Man” (Karen Jacobsen). Where some smell corn, unflinchingly sincere Albertson only finds the sweetly perfumed air of romance and he breathes it in and breathes it out for ready, steady, heady high notes. Duly noted. For him, love is always in bloom like the “Orchids in the Moonlight” of which he sings. Like the Peanuts characters awaiting the non-existent Great Pumpkin, he’ll stay in that moonlight for days, or at least in a moonlight mood, until those orchids bloom (“still my love can never die!” he affirms). The poetically formal language of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “No Other Love” fits him like a tailor-made suit rather than an antique hand-me-down awkwardly worn. Nods to more modern times include a bit of later pop-jazz or updating a line in “I Hear Music” to become “you, my angel, texting me.” We can sense his joy when he approaches the light and bright tempi and gamely dips his toes in—or wants to tap them—and with fifteen tracks, some levity is in order. Some attempts work better than others; a quaint relic like “Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy” is a fun, if dopey, respite. Nevertheless, he seems most effective and at home in the rush of the lush, mush and flush of falling in everlasting love. Pianist Daryl Kojak, his collaborator on arrangements and production, returns for this fourth CD, sometimes nudging the proceedings into jazzland with musical cohorts, which can make for some strange bedfellowship. Cabaret piano bar favorite Jerry Scott takes the keyboard on three tracks for some simpatico like-mindedness. Rob Lester Cabaret Scenes May 2009 www.cabaretscenes.org

Scot Albertson

With Every Note, A Step