Quip for quip, tune for tune, Marilyn Maye does not miss a beat. People will remember this one-night only performance at Bay Street Theater for a long time—this chanteuse, a queen of cabaret, elegant in her mid-90’s in a blond bouffant, and black sequined ensemble with bling at her wrist and throat, sang Cole Porter followed by Johnny Mercer with a bit of Sondheim –songs we all know and love: “I Get No Kick (from Champagne) . . .” flows into “I Concentrate on You” . . . goes to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “Don’t Nobody Bring Me Bad News” before she launches into a story of staying in bed during the pandemic period when her date with Bay Street was, like everything else, cancelled. She watched old movies and ate gummy bears, she claimed, baiting the crowd. Not those, she gave a sly look, wait, maybe I should try those. Of course, everything she says comes with a jolt: she is 94 after all.
Whatever you picture of that landmark year melts away as she sings “her mother’s advice:” “Get Yourself a Rich Man” and fantasizes about the yachts down the Sag Harbor wharf segueing beautifully to a few bars of Fiddler’s “If I ‘Get’ a Rich Man” –with that slight alteration. When she sings “I’m Still Here” from Sondheim’s Follies, she says, in the lyrics’ string of perils, “I got through
Barbra Streisand.” She scats through “On the Street Where You Live,” and greets
Lorna Luft and
Mercedes Ruehl who have come to hear her on this night, when she’s joined by a first-rate trio:
Ted Firth, arranger and pianist, who blew everyone away riffing on “Come Rain or Come Shine,”
Tom Hubbard on bass, and drummer
Mark McKeane. Best of all, when Marilyn Maye says there’s more to come, believe her.
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