Reviews

Patrti Wicks

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Romance Grounded With a Bit of Gravity

The jazz singer and pianist Patti Wicks is all about rhythmic deconstruction. Like the much-missed Carmen McRae, Ms. Wicks, who appeared at the Metropolitan Room on Monday evening with the bassist Linc Milliman, scrutinizes songs with a raised eyebrow. Words and phrases are dismantled with a wry deliberation and an improvisatory boldness that put a question mark at the end of songs, especially when the lyrics are sentimental. Her attitude suggests a certain disbelief: “Oh, really?” she seems to imply.

Yvonne Constant

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Radical Paris Was Rich With Song
Lean and shapely, with silver-blond hair, her face and body lightly dusted with glitter, the Gallic singer Yvonne Constant is the kind of ageless beauty that the French, who worship women of all ages, venerate without having to apply conditional terms like cougar.

Wearing a minidress over a flesh-color body stocking and silver high heels, Ms. Constant, who performed at the Metropolitan Room on Monday evening with the pianist Russ Kassoff, has made few concessions to age. (She is in her 70s.) An international show business presence since her role in the zany 1958 Broadway revue “La Plume de Ma Tante,” she proudly exhibited Marlene Dietrich legs.

Joe Bachana

By ROY SANDER

Before I discuss Joe Bachana's glowing celebration of the songs of Bernie Bierman and Jack Manus, I would like to put it in cultural perspective. More than a half-century after the phenomenon, the terms Tin Pan Alley and Big Band still have a magic about them. Remarkably rich, they conjure up more than simply a period in our musical history and they convey more than just a particular musical genre—though of course they do these as well. More significantly, they reflect an underlying view of life, which itself rests on a set of beliefs and assumptions—and things don't get more fundamental or comprehensive than that.

The body of work that these two terms embrace has a number of qualities in common. The songs are melodic and pleasing, and usually not so complex that they cannot be appreciated, at least in large measure, on first hearing. The lyrics are intelligible, with references that are clear and recognizable by the general public, and they are well crafted. The underlying view of life is a benevolent one.

Nicole Henry

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Love Songs With Power, Not Heartache.

Although jazz and pop-soul singing have always been stylistic first cousins, the line between them has never been fuzzier than it is today. In the voice of Nicole Henry, the gifted Florida singer who during the past year has become one of the top attractions at the Metropolitan Room, the two are practically synonymous.

Ms. Henry, who gave a Valentine’s weekend performance on Saturday to a packed house at the club, tilts a little more toward jazz. Her singing is free of the flowery melismas that became a ubiquitous pop cliché in the 1990s and threatened to turn singing into a mindless gymnastic exercise. Her sound is also devoid of the kind of scat improvisations that many ambitious jazz singers unfortunately feel obligated to shoehorn into their performances to certify a usually bogus kinship with Ella Fitzgerald.

Baby Jane Dexter

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Baby Jane Dexter ~ Photo Richard Termine for The New York Times Baby Jane Dexter, a singer with a mighty contralto, makes a persuasive case for uncovering new meanings in songs by wielding lyrics like blunt instruments. There is no beating around the bush for this longtime cabaret performer, whose new show at the Metropolitan Room is aptly named “All About Love” because it covers so many aspects. Her interpretations of everything from Bob Dylan to Rodgers and Hammerstein have the force of body blows.

Jason Graae

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

A vaudevillian spark plug flashing mischief, Jason Graae did a bit of everything in his show, “Magically Delicious,” at the Metropolitan Room on Saturday. Now 51 and living in Los Angeles, he is a resilient singing clown who has bounced from theater to nightclubs to television to commercials and back, compiling a résumé that serves as a storehouse of zany, lightweight shtick.

Jason Graae in his act, “Magically Delicious,” at the Metropolitan Room on Saturday.

An entertainer who for five years gave voice to Lucky the Leprechaun for Lucky Charms cereal, Mr. Graae has a keen sense of the absurd that a less ebullient performer might milk for bittersweet pathos. But Mr. Graae, accompanied here by the pianist Alex Rybeck, plays it happy-go-lucky, portraying his struggle as one big silly adventure.