Music of the (late) Night

Cost of two discounted cover charges and drinks at Le Jazz Au Bar: about $35
Cost of Jason Robert Brown's new CD:$16
Having a Tony-award-winning composer call you by your blog name as he's signing said CD: priceless.

Au Bar might be the most pretentiously-named cabaret space in the city, but it's a great one. Lush settings, very nice sound system, and a sweet-sounding grand piano made a great spot for Jason Robert Brown's CD release party. Jason and his backup band, the Caucasian Rhythm Kings, kicked tush and named names (okay, fine, the only name named was NY Post critic Michael Reidel, but they metaphorically named names, k?). This show at least was much better on our schedules than the last time we caught JRB at Au Bar, when we went to an 11:00pm show that didn't start till midnight. Jason, if you're still reading this blog: don't you think that "She Cries" is a bloody long enough song without a three-minute instrumental solo at the end? Still, an insanely great evening.

We managed to catch the revival of La Cage before it closed, and The Lovely Wife(tm) finds it remarkably unfair that men can look that good in heels. I might have noticed, but I was too busy cringing watching a chorus line go into full front splits one at a time... I think every straight man in the audience (all three of us) were thinking the same thing: "Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch!" I never saw the original, so I have little to compare this production to, but Jerry Mitchell's choreography was excellent, and Robert Goulet ("RobertGouletRobertGouletohmygodRobertGoulet!" Sorry, brief Chorus Line moment) was spot-on. Who the heck cast Gavin Creel, though? He's certainly not a bad performer, but having someone who's well over six feet tall and looks like he stepped off a Calvin Klein billboard sing "Who else can make me feel like I'm handsome and tall" is just ludicrous.

Most recent musical obsession: the sampler CD for the short-lived off-Broadway show Bare. Damon Intrabartolo's score is wild: finally, a full-out theatrical pop/rock show! A high-octane gospel number featuring the Virgin Mary convincing a gay high schooler to come out to his mother may not be to everybody's taste, but I've been replaying it on the ol' iPod much too frequently for the past week now (cognitive dissonance moment: listening to that number while reading Halakhic Man, Rav Joseph Soloveitchik's classic of Jewish thought).