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NY Cabaret: Maude Maggart's elegant, velvety sound at Algonquin's Oak Room

Her review of history and songs of early Irving Berlin charms and enthralls

By Lucy Komisar

Maude Maggart, her velvety rich soprano with a hint of trill, is the quintessential interpreter of the early years of Irving Berlin. Her performance in the elegant Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel is magnetic, conjuring up a sound that matches the era of the music, from the first decades of the last century. In a black lace sheath, she radiates part innocence, part sophisticated charm.

Maggart is a protégée of Andrea Marcovicci and Michael Feinstein, and the intelligence of her presentation reflects their influence. Introducing the songs, she weaves in the story of Berlin's career, beginning with how this Russian Jewish immigrant grew up on the Lower East Side, left high school at 14 and became a singing waiter on the Bowery. He set risqué lyrics to common songs for his rough audience. "Marie From Sunny Italy," a first attempt in 1907 did not appear very promising: "Oh Marie, beneath the window I'm waiting. Oh Marie, don’t be so aggravating."

But he heard ragtime on the Bowery, and four years later he wrote the hit "Alexander's Ragtime Band." Berlin wrote over 1500 songs, including the anthemic "God Bless America," "Easter Parade," and "White Christmas." He wrote both lyrics and melodies.

The fun stuff includes cool jazzy pieces that Maggart delivers with style: "Let Yourself Go," then his favorite "I Love a Piano," and for the 1919 Ziegfeld Follies, what he considered the greatest song ever written for a musical, "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody."

When Maggart gets to the 1924 "What'll I do?" with the familiar "when you are far away and I am blue, what'll I do?" she picks up a ukulele to strum along. The other numbers are accompanied by pianist and musical director Lanny Meyers and violinist Alan Grubner.

There's an imperceptible move to a more contemporary sound: "I'll be loving you always," written for Ellen Mackie, the Irish Catholic love of his life. Their marriage must have had one of the longest runs in history, lasting till her death, the year before Berlin died at age 101 in 1989.

In never overstated humor, Maggart also presents "Slumming on Park Avenue," Berlin's satirical riposte to the fashion of well-heeled music patrons to visit jazz clubs in Harlem.

"Put on your slumming clothes and get your car
Let's go sightseeing where the high-toned people are
Come on, there's lots of fun in store for you
See how the other half lives on Park Avenue

Let's go slumming, take me slumming
Let's go slumming on Park Avenue

Let us hide behind a pair of fancy glasses
And make faces when a member of the classes passes

Let's go smelling where they're dwelling
Sniffing ev'rything the way they do

Let us go to it, they do it
Why can't we do it too?
Let's go slumming, nose thumbing, on Park Avenue."

This singer's own appeal and grace fit with the romantic, intimate setting of the Oak Room, with its walls of dark brown squares and small red lamps set on circles of hanging wrought-iron.

She attracts a knowledgeable and diverse audience. There was a well-heeled Park Avenue crowd, but at tables near me were also a Barnard music student, a widow from New Jersey, and Princeton black history professor Cornell West.

Maude Maggart will be back for two weeks beginning Valentine's Day. I can't think of a more romantic evening than hearing this singular cabaret performer sing "Love Songs" at the Algonquin.

Maude Maggart, Oak Room, The Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44 St. Tues-Thurs 9 pm, Fri & Sat 9 and 11:30 pm. Through Oct. 8, 2005. New show “Love Songs” February 14-25, 2006. $50 plus $20 minimum Tues-Thurs or late show, or plus $50 Dinner Fri-Sat at 9. (212) 419-9331 Extension 171, or bmcgurn@algonquinhotel.com. http://www.algonquinhotel.com. http://www.maudemaggart.com

Photo of Maude Maggart by Eric Grush.
The Oak Room from the hotel.

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