hi folks: i'm back. more on that later. this in today's ny times. jerry notaro, a couple other jmdlers and i saw a show here in ny, a laura nyro revue, that kuhn was in. she was terrific! wish i'd seen this show.
In a Debut, a Broadway Singer Makes an Art of Insight By STEPHEN HOLDEN It is the rare singer who can negotiate the tricky, stream-of-consciousness folk-pop lyrics of Joni Mitchell, the art songs of Adam Guettel and traditional popular standards like "Come Rain or Come Shine" with equal insight and authority. But Judy Kuhn, the Broadway singer who has appeared in "Chess," "Les Misirables" and "She Loves Me," did exactly that in her revelatory cabaret debut at the Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center on Saturday evening. Ms. Kuhn, who performed with a pop-jazz trio led by the pianist Jeffrey Klitz, has a clear sweet voice with a slightly metallic edge that she flexes along a stylistic continuum that runs from Laura Nyro to Betty Buckley, while shying away from their dramatic extremes. The material was arranged into a loosely knit song cycle beginning with Tom Waits's "I Don't Want to Grow Up" and ending with Ms. Nyro's "And When I Die," about a restless woman's decision to settle down and have a child and the joys and fears that kind of commitment entails. The turning point of the show and the concert's most inspired moment was Ms. Kuhn's version of "Let the Wind Carry Me," from Ms. Mitchell's album "Court and Spark." Ms. Kuhn found every psychological nuance in the feverish meditation of a boy-crazy teenager who fantasizes about becoming pregnant and whose rebellious attitude fuels some bitter cross-fire between her indulgent father and puritanical mother. -- patrick (leader) np - lee brouwer - guitar concerto #6 "helsinki" [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef which had a name of winmail.dat]
