Soft Opening of a Potential New Cabaret Venue

Central Park Café is a humble coffee shop half a block from Carnegie Hall, the kind of comfortable, old fashioned place where the kitchen pings when a dish is ready and regulars are greeted. Menu is varied and reasonable with a great many Italian entrees. In hopes of increasing clientele, the venue is attempting to add once a week cabaret. As yet, they’re not physically set up for this. The ladies – all veterans – brought their own piano and equipment (sound was fine) and there is no stage light – the place just dims.

Meg Flather, Karen Mack, Rosemary Loar and Tracy Stark, “three Aquarians and a Taurus,”  each sharing half an hour, offered fine entertainment for that rainy (or any other night). Stark played piano and sang her usual skilled back-up. The opening song, an apt and cool “Coffee” was her original.

Flather, who only seems to get better, began with Janis Ian’s “When the Party’s Over.” The warmth of the sixties pervaded. Three selections by Rodgers and Hammerstein followed. Songs were slower and less bouncy than often rendered bringing out the meaning of lyrics. The vocalist makes material personal.

A little patter about Flather’s home shopping work lead to “Keep Young and Beautiful” (Harry Warren/ Al Dubin). Part parlando, part patter, part song, it was charming. “Remember no shipping and handling!” Stark’s low key arrangement of “She Works Hard for The Money” (Donna Summer) haunts rather than pounds. The artist’s reference to not being able to make music in front of people during the Pandemic prefaced “Make Your Own Kind of Music” (Barry Mann/Cynthia Weill) which arrived palpably grateful and happy.

Karen Mack is self contained. The performer starts with Dave Cantor’s “Baby Talk” styled in eezee, flirty jazz. Notes seem to shimmer out of her. “Seven Years” (Lee Alexander) is evocative sway music. “…a little girl with nothin’ wrong and she’s alone…” Mack quietly conjures. “No More Blues” (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes – English lyrics John Hendricks) is rhythmic with shorter, sharper phrasing. It ends with fading scat as if dancing away. More please.

“Why Try to Change Me Now?” (Cy Coleman/Joseph McCarthy) goes down like smooth whiskey. It’s almost torch. “Last Go Round” (Dave Cantor) appears a story song. Having been told by a psychic about many lives, a woman learns this is her last. “It’s now or never, darling,” she sings. Mack sells it. Only the John Lennon/Paul McCartney “Can’t Buy Me Love” doesn’t work despite Stark’s solid duet. It just seems awkward.

Rosemary Loar is a vessel for music. It courses through visibly puppeting her body. Jazz renditions evince elastic vocals. “Show Me” (Alan Jay Lerner Frederick Loewe) is introduced with reference to Match.com. Most of us relate. Her version arrives with repetition and melisma. “Harmless Little Sin” (Loar) is theatrical and sexy. “I turned myself on writing that,” she chuckles. Stark shows the keyboard who’s boss.

With a sassy “Ain’t Got Nothin’ But the Blues” (Duke Ellington/Don George) Loar kneads phrases – you know, like bread. She bends forward, wheels around, cuts through the air with an arm. Tone changes completely on Nellie McKay’s “I Wanna Get Married.” Loar appears sincere and hopeful; a bit of a kewpie doll. Her own “All I Could Do Was Sigh” (with Flather) is a ready-for-prime-time pop hit. In contrast, the iconic “Angel Eyes” beautifully exorcises emotion like a tuneful wail. The set ends with two songs written decades apart with the same message, one tender, one wry. Good choices.

If the venue gets it together, this will be an additional low key, affordable (I’m told $25.00 cover, no minimum) place to casually hear good music.

Opening: Karen Mack, Rosemary Loar, Meg Flather, Tracy Stark
Photo – Ray DeForest

Central Park Café
910 Seventh Avenue