Baby Jane Dexter

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Songs of Speculation, Found in Unlikely Places

To hear Baby Jane Dexter, a cabaret singer with a mountainous contralto, plow into the early-’90s R.E.M. hit “Everybody Hurts” is to rediscover a rock ballad transformed into an all-purpose anthem in the mode of inspirational war horses like “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The plain-spoken emotional directness of that ballad makes it something of an anomaly in the catalog of R.E.M., a band known for elliptical lyrics and droning melodies.

Ms. Dexter, who made “Everybody Hurts” the encore in her new cabaret show, “If ...,” at the Metropolitan Room on Wednesday evening, had sung it before, but never quite like this. Accompanied by Ross Patterson’s pounding rock piano and Boots Maleson’s bass, she shaped the song into an increasingly urgent cry to “hold on,” as though she were pleading with a desperate friend not to jump off the roof.

“Everybody Hurts” was the high point of a show many of whose songs revolve around suppositions, memories and fantasies: “If I Had a Million,” “If I Ruled the World,” “This Nearly Was Mine.” The theme was spelled out with her performance of the Bonnie Bramlett song “What If?” — whose lyrics declare, “I don’t want to spend every day of the life I live asking ‘What if?’ ”

Ms. Dexter has always specialized in choosing worthy out-of-the-way songs. In addition to “What If?” the stronger numbers on Wednesday’s opening-night show included Lucinda Williams’s “Side of the Road” and Harry Nilsson’s “Remember.” Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Ordinary Couple” from “The Sound of Music” was joined to “This Nearly Was Mine,” to suggest picture-perfect domesticity longingly observed from the outside.

Augmenting the songs were anecdotes, one of which recalled her experiences in “Hair,” for which she auditioned 13 times, finally making it into the chorus. Returning after a month’s break during which she traveled to Spain, she was shocked to discover she was barely remembered. In “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee,” an outlandish fantasy of the actor’s glamorous life from Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio,” she found the perfect offbeat number to complement this tale of punctured show-business expectations.

Baby Jane Dexter continues through Nov. 29 at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, Flatiron district; (212) 206-0440, metropolitanroom.com.

Written by STEPHEN HOLDEN
The New York Times

Baby Jane Dexter: IF...
By: John Hoglund

To many, the art of cabaret can be summed up in just three words: Baby Jane Dexter.

It has been written, the true measure of any singer's worth is in the eye of the beholder. One person's Ella is another's Liza. In short, there's no magic formula to becoming one of the great ones. All one can do is be dedicated, truthful, have a willingness to experiment and keep it real. Enter Baby Jane Dexter and her explosive must-see new show, “If ...” currently running at Metropolitan Room at Gotham. It also helps if the performer is a visionary who can also entertain.

In this set, conceived and directed by Elissa Paterson with Ross Paterson as musical director and Boots Maleson on bass, she takes on a more structured, more complex and, ultimately, more encompassing journey that asks a plethora of serious and silly questions. - all based on one word - if. It is arguably her best outing to date. The hour is filled with pearls you won't find in any other show – anywhere. From Broadway, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Kander and Ebb pole dance with hot tunes by Lucinda Williams, David Clayton Thomas, the Gershwin's and even a fun ditty from “Pinnochio.”

She opens prophetically with words to a song by Hoobastank, a post grunge California rock group: “ I stand before a road that will lead into the unknown ... I'll take the first step of a million more ... at least I'm moving forward... ” The tone is set. It's positive. It's optimistic. It's questionable. Mostly, it makes a statement about what could have been, what might have been and - what will be. It's also a little shuddery as the mystery starts to unwind. Her pronouncement is reinforced with Williams' profound “Side of the Road” and a haunting “Remember,” by Harry Nilsson which is one of the hour’s sterling offerings that casts a pensive, reflective image that lingers.

Having long ago validated herself as a hip interpreter of appealing, more obscure material, Dexter sings about “ Lessons, so many lessons, you think I'd know by now ... questions, so many questions ... I need answers to somehow ... I don't want to spend every day of this life I live asking myself what if?” from Williams epistle on life's meanderings. Therein lies the visceral root of her show as it repeatedly returns to the singular query – what if? You will not find such a chasm of emotion on any other stage in cabaret. That's probably because few singers know themselves better than Dexter. Besides, what singer could pull all that off with such verve? As always, Dexter opts for substance over style. The results are a streaming waterfall of emotions that complicate as much as they command.

By the time she segues into a musical trilogy starting with, Kander and Ebbs' “I Don't Remember You” from “The Happy Time,” followed by the Rodgers and Hammerstein's gem, “Ordinary Couple” from “The Sound of Music” and culminating in a trenchant “This Nearly Was Mine” from “South Pacific,” she has unleashed a trunk load of tempered tremors unequaled in an intimate boite since the likes of Mabel Mercer and Nina Simone, two very different albeit revered ladies of song who reinvented lyrical delivery to stamp their unique brand on it and make their mark. It might have been a funeral dirge in lesser hands. This scene, incidentally, also might have been even more effective in the important eleven o'clock slot. But Dexter makes it work seamlessly as it unfolds at a Julliard master class level in tempered storytelling that graduate students should be required to observe if only to savor such a tornado of sentiment fused with a lack of sappy melodramatics. Other highlights include a sassy “Ain't Nobody's Business If I do” (Grainger-Robbins) and a melting “Why Did I Choose You?” (Leonard-Martin.)

In the final analysis, Dexter serves it all up with unwavering optimism that runs a gamut of emotions unseen since Garland first sang “The Man That Got Away.” It's that good. And, like Garland, she's in great voice. Through it all, the audience is entertained at a high voltage level that smokes. Dexter has come a long way since her return to the business in 1990. This is no self-absorbed diva turn attempting material she has no right going near. This is a caring, wise artist at the zenith of an awesome cabaret career that shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, the newly svelte Dexter, who has lost considerable poundage and taken on a glamorous look, is in better shape and voice than ever.

Ross Paterson's sizzling arrangements are about as flawless as it gets and full of imagination by this gifted musical artist. Bassist Boots Maleson hits his stride on several solo riffs that are standouts. At times, their heavy hands threatened to drown out Dexter until some needed technical adjustments were made on opening night. Director Elissa Paterson deserves credit for structuring a complicated song list into something so diverse in this risky, non-traditional cabaret set.

Whatever your musical tastes, Dexter can be eclectic and Gotham chic. She can be real and imperfect at the same time. She can sweep the audience up in the current of whatever wave she's riding on and make them feel lost in the moment without making them feel the remotest bit removed. They are a part of her world; her past, present and her future. It is an accessible world filled with blood, sweat and fears from a conduit with a lot to give. It is also a world not to be missed and only avoided if you want to miss one of the greatest talents in cabaret today.

Metropolitan Room at Gotham

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