If you wanna go to see Nellie McKay at Feinstein’s on 61st and Park, here’s a suggestion. Get one of your TV reps to pay and make sure they are damn good friends because I took a sneak look at the check and it was $1,200 for four.
So it makes it odd to see Nellie McKay’s mother hawking Nellie’s fine Doris Day tribute album Normal As Blueberry Pie outside Feinstein’s in the lobby of the Regency. Still what can you expect from the Mom of a woman who inroduces a song she wrote about Bodegas (incidentally, the second song I’ve heard about Bodegas in my last two concetrts -Obamation sang one as well) by recommending we spend our money there instead of here.
It’s a funny joke and there a lot to laugh at from Nellie, a former stand-up comedienne …and a lot to admire in her 75 minute set. With a first rate backing band the Aristocrats (Steve Diamond mentions the real affection between band and woman), Nellie mentions Jay Berliner, the excellent jazz guitarist in his own right, will be leaving her to join Van Morrison’s band. It’s that sort of band. That good.
Nellie herself, in a bright pink dress, is equal parts jazzed up and quirky. Nellie looks old fashioned, a little professional virginy, but with an undercurrent of attractiveness: her innocence seems merely a layer and, when playing songs from the songbook, that were ALL IMPLICATION, it comes in very handy. And though the quirkiness can feel a little forced, a touch of performance art, the jazz never waivers.
Nellie has an incredible singing range, her cover of the Doris Day /Andre Previn “Close Your Eyes” is soft and low, “Underneath The Underdog” swinging and fun and when she picks up her ukelele she is all of the above at once.
But at the start of the set, a very low key “Sentimental Journey”, I am fidgeting a bit: I don’t quite get what she is doing.
The very next song, “Wonderful Guy”, which put me off on the record as well, seems to substitute exhuberance for whimsy. And that’s it for the caveats. Leading her five piece band, Nellie is equal parts playful, mellow, distant. I love her but I feel I am being put on and then slowly, with a lovely come on “Undecided Now” which speeds up and speeds up and a daring “Mean To Me” which is aware of Billie Holiday’s but brushes only so close to the version, she wins me completely over.That’s one of the great things about McKay’s mix of classics and originals, they are so true to her vision of them, the experience is so unique.
Perhaps never more than on “A-Tiskit, A-Tasket” -completely in tune with Ella Fitzgerald’s career making original and yet somehow naive, childlike, and Nellie’s.
And as the set builds momentum, Nellie begins to come into shape as a musician: she is a study in self-control, even when singing a rethought “Broadway Melody” or dedicating a self-penned extended sneer at male sexism “Mother Of Pearl” with “This is dedicated to Lena Horne because she was sassy”, or, a highlight tonight, “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?” which is deeply felt and naturally exudes its subtext.
Nellie is a bit of a joker, claiming claiming she had screwed up the syncopated “Crazy Rhythm”… No, she didn’t. But it gives her an excuse to say, “OK, now this is the last song…” before launching into a fine “I Want To be Happy”. All three of my friends are enthralled: none of them have heard her before, but sitting next to Chickie, I can feel her pleasure: her, along with Steve and Sandy’s, joy at perfectly executed American pop music.
The last song is a singalong “Que Sera Sera” -in keeping with the Doris Day tribute concept. Nellie botches the lyric and the audience doesn’t care as they sing along. Hands down, Nellie has won us over and made a new batch of close friends. She’s sassy.