Top Picks for Valentine's Week - New York City Article

Top Picks for Valentine’s Week

Marilyn Maye
The Iridium
1650 Broadway
Thursday February 14th through Sunday February 17th

Hilary Kole
The Iridium
1650 Broadway
Tuesday February 12

Catherine Russell
Birdland
315 W 44th Street, (212) 581-3080
Tuesday February 12 through Saturday February 16

Billy Stritch, “My Winter Valentine”
Birdland
315 W 44th Street, (212) 581-3080
Featuring special Guests
Wednesday February 13 through Saturday February 16

Carole J. Bufford featuring the Steven Feifke Trio
Birdland
315 W 44th Street, (212) 581-3080
Thursday, February 14

As with Christmas, Valentine’s is a good choice week to attend live jazz - for singers and musicians, it’s an inspiring holiday to celebrate in song and a particularly rewarding subject to build a show around. Throughout the middle of February, you can plan on hearing some of your favorite love songs rendered and re-interpreted in creative and exciting ways.
Marilyn Maye is, as always, the most exciting entertainer in town, whenever, that is, we are lucky enough to have her in town. A powerhouse of a performer, she’s best known for her fast, usually funny and always swinging uptempos. Yet when she shows her tender and romantic side, she can be as moving and emotional as the best of them. More than most of even the best singers, she doesn’t need the crutch of a slow tempo to get to you - she can break your heart even while you’re snapping your fingers.
Hilary Kole is the last and youngest (by far) of the major big band singers, having started singing for dancers at the Rainbow Room, then spent a decade or so singing in tributes to Sinatra and Astaire, and, more recently, matured as both a jazz vocalist and a folk-influenced singer songwriter. In honor of the holiday, she’s promised a program of standard love songs (the inclusion of both “The Best Thing for You” and “It’s a Lovely Day Today” makes it plain that she loves Irving Berlin’s Call Me Madam as much as I do) and I’m anxious to hear what she’ll do with Shorty Jackson’s early R&B hit, “Knock Me a Kiss.”
The headliner at Birdland this week is Catherine Russell, heiress to jazz royalty, and tops any list of the the best blues-and-jazz singers working today. In an age of big voiced blasters and screeching pseudo soul divas, Ms. Russell is the real thing, a blues chanteuse of extraordinary taste and subtlety. No doubt in honor of the holiday, and her new album, she’ll focus her attentions on the romantic side of the blues.
As I’ve often said, Billy Stritch is the most harmonically-endowed, rhythmically-inspired and overall gifted of all contemporary jazz pianists who doesn’t work full time as a jazz pianist, but rather as much sought after musical director for any name-above-the-title headliner with ears (most famously LIza Minnelli, Marilyn Maye, and Tony Bennett). He brings the same musical acumen to his own singing and shows, and this week he’ll work with four notable guest vocalists: Gabrielle Stravelli (Wednesday), Sally Mayes (Thursday), Aisha De Haas (Friday) and Lillias White (Saturday).
Carol Bufford is a fearless singer who takes everything from 1920s blues to 1960s power pop and, along the way, a heaping helping of Broadway eleven o’clock numbers, in her stride. With a big voice and an even bigger personality, whatever she chooses to lay on us is bound to inspire both thrills and chills and make February feel like July. (Note: All three of these last three-described artists are appearing at Birdland on Thursday, V-Day itself, if you feel like treating yourself to a series music marathon.)

For the Iridium's website, click here.

For the Birdland website, click here.