Chicago Tribune Article - Nov. 1, 1992 - see text below:
Text of article by Howard Reich – Arts Critic Chicago Tribune
Cabaret Today
The Life of a singer is not what it used to be
November 1, 1992
Somehow, in a music world increasingly defined by the shattering sounds of heavy metal, rap and rock, a more delicate voice is beginning to re-emerge.
Though ignored by commercial radio, neglected by major record labels and passed over by most of the important concert halls, the cabaret singer in finding a niche of her own in the ‘90s. In rooms across Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, cabaret singers are re-establishing their presence.
The pat and the recognition may not be large, but the prospering careers of artists such as Andres Marcovicci, Spider Saloff, Kirsten Gustafson, Julie Wilson, Audrey Morris and dozens more suggest an unmistakable cabaret movement in America.
Nowhere are the triumphs and hardships of the cabaret life more evident than in the careers of two of Chicago’s best performers, the brilliant veteran Lucy Reed and the rising young artist Denise Tomasello.
Reed came up in the 1950s, the heyday of Chicago cabaret, when virtually every hotel and showroom worthy of the name had a resident singer and a first-class trio to back her. After weathering the lean years that resulted from the rock ‘n’ roll onslaught in the ‘60s, Reed has come back with two exquisite compact discs.
Tomasello also has prospered in recent years in Chicago – so much, in fact, that she recently announced that she was leaving the city to build her career further in Los Angeles. On Saturday, she’ll sing her farewell concert at the Park West.
With both singers at turning points in their careers, we brought them together to talk about the cabaret life. Listen to their conversation, and you’ll hear a different side of the world of cabaret.
Tomasello: I guess I got into the business in the first place because I used to watch all the old movie musicals in TV, and I never listened to anything pop or rock on the radio. It never interested me.
Reed: Good Girl.
Tomasello: I always found the show music more romantic, and I felt that, lyrically, the stories found in those songs told more than what you would ever hear in pop or rock. Mostly I listed to Judy Garland, and I loved Peggy Lee.
Reed: I think I got into this music because that’s what was available when I was coming up. I mean, this was the pop music of the day, and I was inspired by all the great ladies you could hear singing in Chicago all the time: Peggy Lee, Carmen McRae, they contributed so much. I remember seeing a movie with Joan Crawford called “Torch Song,” and I said to myself, “Hey, that’s what I do.”
Tomasello: Yeah, it really was the old movies that did it. Like the old Fred Astaire movies – that was my fantasy of what it would be like to be a singer. I always pictured those kinds of singers as having more mystique and glamour than anyone else. Maybe it was because of all the romances in those movies, so that you would link the song with the story.
Reed: So when I was coming up, I really thought I was going into pop music. I’d hear people like Betty Hutton singing a song like, “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief,” or she would come out with a recording of a gorgeous ballad like “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So.” And I’d hear Gene Krupa swinging on drums and Anita O’Day singing for him, and Frankie Laine was just too much. So that was the hip music of the day. That was it.
Tomasello: Just hearing you say those names reminds me that I was always frustrated that I missed that era. My vocal coach, who used to work at the Chez Paree (the legendary but long-shuttered Chicago supper club), used to say to me, “It’s a shame you weren’t around 20 years ago.”
But I was still determined to sing this material. When I started out, I was in a Top 40 group, but I insisted on doing these songs, and finally I found a club where I could – Sage’s (when it was on North State Parkway0.
I went in there when it was a nice, little, intimate piano bar, and I gradually made it into more of a show setting.
Reed: I started out singing on KSTP radio in St. Paul, where I was in a group of four girls, and we got paid $5 a week. But I never really thought about singing professionally until my husband was killed in WWII, and that’s when I decided I had to decide to do something or other with my life.
So I came to Chicago in 1950 and moved into the Chelsea Hotel because all the musicians lived there. And immediately I was singing around town and on radio, on WGN and NBC.
Chicago was really good to me. I always played Mister Kelly’s once a year – they hired local people there as well as out-of-town stars. And I played clubs like the Cloister Inn and the Black Orchid. The room that I’m probably best known from is the Lei Aloha, where I played from 1951 to ’54. And I worked at the High Note on Howard Street.
Along the way, I raised two sons and continued to sing. It was a good life.
Tomasello: For me, it all clicked at Sage’s. Somehow, it turned out to be a marriage of the right room and the right audience and myself. I was there for six years, and I managed to find a clientele.
Reed: You do have a good following for someone your age.
Tomasello: This city has been good to me – I feel as if I’ve had a love affair with this city. IN Chicago, you get to know your following, and they get to know you. That’s what’s unique about the city. It was just kind of magical.
But lately, I’ve been frustrated in Chicago. I think there are less places to sing than there were two years ago, and the cabaret scene in Los Angeles is much bigger than in Chicago. (Doubtful, considering that cabaret music now flourishes at Cricket’s, Green Mill Jazz Club, Christopher’s on Halsted, Coq d’Or, Gold Star Sardine Bar, Toulouse, Yvette, Yvette Wintergarden, Mayfair Hotel and many more.)
I must say I’m also going to Los Angeles because I hope to get an acting agent, since they have so much TV and movies there.
Reed: For me, things are going real well right here. One of my new CDs, “The Singing Reed,” is a reissue (of a 1957 Fantasy recording with pianist Bill Evans). Actually, I wasn’t aware that the Fantasy CD was out. I found out because a friend of my son’s was browsing through the Bill Evans bin in a record store and noticed it.
So I think the main reason it was reissued was because Bill Evans was on it, but who cares? Of course, they didn’t have to get permission from me. In those days, you just got a flat fee and there was usually nothing about royalties. So I got $200 for that record, but I would have done it no matter what the money. It was a chance to sing with Bill Evans.
On the new record (“Basic Reeding” on Audiophile), I asked my old friends Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Larry Novak if they would be willing to play for me, and they were. Apparently, Audiophile had always wanted to record me, so we got it together.
Tomasello: I hope to be doing a recording in the next six months, too, and I’ve been talking to a couple record companies, but nothing has happened quite yet. It’s hard.
Reed: I can’t say I’ve been frustrated. I’ve got the records now, and whenever I want to sing, I seem to make it happen.
I’ve always wanted to be in Chicago. In fact, I was offered a chance to work with Duke Ellington, but I was never tuned into becoming a star.
Sure, I wonder what might have happened if I had done this or that, but life has been happy for me, because I’ve been around to see my kids have kids, and that meant a lot.
Tomasello: I hope to someday get married and have a family too, but I really wouldn’t ever turn anything down. I just want to progress.
As for my act, there’s more than music there. It’s also trying to suggest a certain mood, trying to create a fantasy.
Reed: Well, I used to sing songs like “Love for Sale,” but I think I was serious about it, I wasn’t selling it. Nowadays, I’m thinking of myself as more of a swing singer, a Count Basie type of entertainer. I prefer to sing “up.”
As for Denise, I think you sound very ambitious, and I just wish you all the luck that you’ll need for it.
My advice to you is to just go out and sing your heart out, and the rest will follow.