Baby Jane Dexter has always had a spellbinding effect on her audiences, perhaps never more than in her last turn at the Metropolitan Room. Now, giving new meaning to the term, “by popular demand,” Dexter has just released the live recording of that wildly successful show, If... on Quannacut Records. Containing show-stopping paeans to life such as “Remember,” “Long Road Home” and “This Nearly Was Mine,” the album captures the magic that filled the room leaving her fans laughing and crying out loud.

The disc also has fun stuff like “The ‘In’ Crowd,” “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor’s Life for Me),” “T’Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do” and some funny anecdotes that had the crowd in stitches. The show became a must-see and one of those cabaret events that count. The CD grabs every emotional nuance that earned those standing ovations. Moving from rock-flavored anthems of angst to street cries to poignant pleas of another time, Dexter mixes phrases of songs with a languorous, almost hypnotizing cadenced narration, before she reaches a full-scale treatment of R.E.M.’s emotionally charged “Everybody Hurts” as she closes the set in a triumphant, primal wail. It’s all here on one of the best live albums captured in a cabaret venue. More important, she brings to the songs a warm, sensitive, often slyly dramatic quality that contributes to the performance and makes it all so memorable.

Ross Patterson’s exceptional arrangements couldn’t be better complemented by Boots Maleson on bass.

John Hoglund
Cabaret Scenes
May 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org