TimeOut
New York December 18-31, 2008
names
Baby Jane Dexter to top 10 The best cabaret of 2008
"Baby Jane Dexter: If... Metropolitan Room,
November
Dexter dominates a song like a biker mama
with a long road behind her,
equal parts kick-ass and
wise." Adam Feldman, cabaret writer
|
|
GO news, British Columbia
TIMES COLONIST / timescolonist.com
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2009
BEST OF JAZZ
Big Apple favourite takes pop to the
cabaret
Fun tunes from Baby
Jane Dexter / a surprise from hit maker Patti Page
“IF” (www.babyjanedexter.com) Quannacut
Baby Jane Dexter has
been a fixture on the New York cabaret scene for decades,
And this recently
released CD, recorded before an audience at the Metropolitan
Room, demonstrates why
she’s such a Big Aple favourite.
Dexter’s big, brassy contralto is a
perfect instrument for her singular interpretations of a non-traditional
cabaret repertoire that includes songs written by
Lucinda Willoiams and L.A.. punk Hoobastank,
as well as the Gershwins and Rogers and Hammerstain.
Her mid-set reading of South
Pacific’s Ordinary Couple and This Nearly Was Mine is the heartbreaking
centerpiece to an evening that also includes a riveting version of Harry
Nilsson’s Remember and a thrilling reading of REM’s Everybody Hurts.
Ethel Merman, Judy Garland, Bette Midler,
and Sophie Tucker come to mind, as Baby Jane plows through soft and swinging
renditions of great old chestnuts and newly shaped pop tunes. Her anecdotally rich, playfully rambling
introductions are almost as much fun as her singing, and that’s saying
something. This is cabaret singing at
its best. - Joseph Blake
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
John Hoglund – Theatrescene: Baby Jane Dexter: IF ...
To many, the art of cabaret can be summed up
in just three words: Baby Jane Dexter.
It has been written, the true measure of any
singer's worth is in the eye of the beholder. One person's Ella is another's Liza. In short, there's no magic formula to becoming one of
the great ones. All one can do is be dedicated, truthful, have a willingness to
experiment and keep it real. Enter Baby Jane Dexter and her explosive must-see
new show, “If ...” currently running at Metropolitan Room at Gotham. It also helps if the performer is a visionary who
can also entertain.
In this set, conceived and directed by Elissa Paterson with Ross Paterson as musical director and
Boots Maleson on bass, she takes on a more
structured, more complex and, ultimately, more encompassing journey that asks a
plethora of serious and silly questions. - all based on one word - if. It is
arguably her best outing to date. The hour is filled with pearls you won't find
in any other show – anywhere. From Broadway, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Kander and Ebb pole dance with hot tunes by Lucinda
Williams, David Clayton Thomas, the Gershwin's and even a fun ditty from
“Pinnochio.”
She opens prophetically with words to a song
by Hoobastank, a post grunge California rock group:
“ I stand before a road that will lead into the unknown ... I'll take the
first step of a million more ... at least I'm moving forward... ” The
tone is set. It's positive. It's optimistic. It's questionable. Mostly, it
makes a statement about what could have been, what might have been and - what
will be. It's also a little shuddery as the mystery starts to unwind. Her
pronouncement is reinforced with Williams' profound “Side of the
Road” and a haunting “Remember,” by Harry Nilsson which is
one of the hour’s sterling offerings that casts a pensive, reflective
image that lingers.
Having long ago validated herself as a hip
interpreter of appealing, more obscure material, Dexter sings about “
Lessons, so many lessons, you think I'd know by now ... questions, so many
questions ... I need answers to somehow ... I don't want to spend every day of
this life I live asking myself what if?” from Williams epistle on life's
meanderings. Therein lies the visceral root of her show as it repeatedly
returns to the singular query – what if? You will not find such a chasm
of emotion on any other stage in cabaret. That's probably because few singers
know themselves better than Dexter. Besides, what singer could pull all that
off with such verve? As always, Dexter opts for substance over style. The results
are a streaming waterfall of emotions that complicate as much as they command.
By the time she segues into a musical trilogy
starting with, Kander and Ebbs' “I Don't
Remember You” from “The Happy Time,” followed by the Rodgers
and Hammerstein's gem, “Ordinary Couple” from “The Sound of
Music” and culminating in a trenchant “This Nearly Was Mine”
from “South Pacific,” she has unleashed a trunk load of tempered
tremors unequaled in an intimate boite since the
likes of Mabel Mercer and Nina Simone, two very different albeit revered ladies
of song who reinvented lyrical delivery to stamp their unique brand on it and
make their mark. It might have been a funeral dirge in lesser hands. This
scene, incidentally, also might have been even more effective in the important
eleven o'clock slot. But Dexter makes it work seamlessly as it unfolds at a
Julliard master class level in tempered storytelling that graduate students
should be required to observe if only to savor such a tornado of sentiment
fused with a lack of sappy melodramatics. Other highlights include a sassy
“Ain't Nobody's Business If I do”
(Grainger-Robbins) and a melting “Why Did I Choose You?”
(Leonard-Martin.)
In the final analysis, Dexter serves it all up
with unwavering optimism that runs a gamut of emotions unseen since Garland
first sang “The Man That Got Away.” It's that good. And, like
Garland, she's in great voice. Through it all, the audience is entertained at a
high voltage level that smokes. Dexter has come a long way since her return to
the business in 1990. This is no self-absorbed diva turn attempting material
she has no right going near. This is a caring, wise artist at the zenith of an
awesome cabaret career that shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, the newly
svelte Dexter, who has lost considerable poundage and taken on a glamorous
look, is in better shape and voice than ever.
Ross Paterson's sizzling arrangements are
about as flawless as it gets and full of imagination by this gifted musical
artist. Bassist Boots Maleson hits his stride on
several solo riffs that are standouts. At times, their heavy hands threatened
to drown out Dexter until some needed technical adjustments were made on
opening night. Director Elissa Paterson deserves
credit for structuring a complicated song list into something so diverse in
this risky, non-traditional cabaret set.
Whatever your musical tastes, Dexter can be
eclectic and Gotham chic. She can be real and
imperfect at the same time. She can sweep the audience up in the current of
whatever wave she's riding on and make them feel lost in the moment without
making them feel the remotest bit removed. They are a part of her world; her
past, present and her future. It is an accessible world filled with blood,
sweat and fears from a conduit with a lot to give. It is also a world not to be
missed and only avoided if you ant to miss one of the greatest talents in
cabaret today.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Baby Jane
Dexter: If
December 01, 2008
By
David Finkle
Although Baby Jane Dexter called her recent
Metropolitan Room foray If, she
may have settled on a misnomer. The uncertainty implied by the title doesn't seem
the imposing contralto's primary stance. Indeed, she began with expressions of
absolute certainty on Hoobastank's "Moving Forward" (Dan Estrin-Doug
Robb) and Lucinda Williams' determinedly independent
"Side of the Road," wherein the song's first-person narrator informs
her lover of a need for alone time.
To be sure, Dexter included several selections in which dubiety figures, most
emphatically the Bonnie Bramlett-Gary Cotton
"What If," the Will Holt-Gary William Friedman "If I Had a
Million Dollars" from The Me
Nobody Knows, and the Leslie
Bricusse-Cyril Ornadel
"If I Ruled the World" from Pickwick.
But the thrush, now 70 pounds lighter and a shadow of her former sylph, has
never been a gal to waver over what she thinks goes and what doesn't. Yes,
there's an if in " 'Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do" (Porter
Grainger-Everett Robbins), but there was no if in a steamroller delivery that garnered cheers when the last do was sustained for a stretch that Ethel
Merman would have envied.
On a few items, Dexter did become ruminative, perhaps most notably on South Pacific's "This Nearly Was
Mine" (Oscar Hammerstein II-Richard
Rodgers), which she paired with the duo's "An Ordinary
Couple" from The Sound of Music.
But even then she infused the lyric with a staunch acceptance that lent an
unusual strength to it. On the perverse Fred
Ebb-John Kander ballad
"I Don't Remember You" from The
Happy Time, she was downright authoritative. No if either in her beg-off number "Everybody Hurts (Michael
Stipe-Bill
Berry-Mike Mills-Peter
Buck), which is becoming a signature tune for her because she
conveys the painful but honest message so unflinchingly.
An abidingly intriguing facet of Dexter's onstage persona is that it's split
between the singing, which sounds as if it's coming from somewhere near the
earth's molten core, and the chatter, which seems to be randomly skittering off
her bouncy brain. She never gives the impression she's editing herself. Quite
the opposite — whatever occurs to her to say, she says. "Don't
interrupt me," she warned a patron and explained that anyone who knows her
understands interruptions are a huge mistake. She will, however, interrupt
herself during the intros she's planned — at least loosely. One story
about her at 5 years old entertaining construction workers with an impromptu
ditty was only the beginning of the spoken hilarity. God knows what director Elissa
Patterson makes of this, other than to wave it on. Music director Ross
Patterson must be more or less used to it, although bassist Boots Maleson may not be.
There is, it seems to me, a certain uncertainty to Dexter these days, which is
confined to her vocal prowess. I've been listening to her since her days at
Budd Friedman's Improvisation some 35 years ago or so. It may be that my ears
are playing tricks on me, but I'd say she no longer has quite the power she had
then. That she lost track of lyrics twice during the set I heard means nothing,
but the difficulty sustaining some notes is new to me. She's always taken
deliberate liberty with melodies as well, but sometimes now I'm not convinced
all the liberties are deliberate.
Still, when she sings
"Hold on" at the end of "Everybody Hurts," she holds on
with facility. No matter what, our Baby Jane continues to move forward, and
it's kinda amazing.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Songs of Speculation, Found in Unlikely Places
Published: November 13, 2008
Ms. Dexter, who made “Everybody
Hurts” the encore in her new cabaret show, “If ...,” at the
Metropolitan Room on Wednesday evening, had sung it before, but never quite
like this. Accompanied by Ross Patterson’s pounding rock piano and Boots Maleson’s bass, she shaped the song into an
increasingly urgent cry to “hold on,” as though she were pleading
with a desperate friend not to jump off the roof.
“Everybody Hurts” was the
high point of a show many of whose songs revolve around suppositions, memories
and fantasies: “If I Had a Million,” “If I Ruled the World,”
“This Nearly Was Mine.” The theme was spelled out with her
performance of the Bonnie Bramlett song “What
If?” — whose lyrics declare, “I don’t want to spend
every day of the life I live asking ‘What if?’ ”
Ms. Dexter has always specialized in
choosing worthy out-of-the-way songs. In addition to “What If?” the
stronger numbers on Wednesday’s opening-night show included Lucinda Williams’s “Side of the
Road” and Harry Nilsson’s “Remember.” Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s “Ordinary Couple” from “The Sound of
Music” was joined to “This Nearly Was Mine,” to suggest
picture-perfect domesticity longingly observed from the outside.
The bluntest of singers, Ms. Dexter
delivers lyrics in big, hearty bursts of energy. She gets into trouble only
when she tries to apply musical frills. When she sings too high or too softly,
her voice begins to wobble and crack. But when belting in the expansive chest
voice that dominated Wednesday’s show, she exerted a formidable command.
Augmenting the songs were anecdotes,
one of which recalled her experiences in “Hair,” for which she
auditioned 13 times, finally making it into the chorus. Returning after a month’s
break during which she traveled to Spain, she was shocked to discover she was
barely remembered. In “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee,” an outlandish fantasy of
the actor’s glamorous life from Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio,”
she found the perfect offbeat number to complement this tale of punctured
show-business expectations.
Baby Jane Dexter continues through
Nov. 29 at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, Flatiron district; (212)
206-0440, metropolitanroom.com.
Reviewers searching for ways
to describe the cabaret singer Baby Jane Dexter often use words like
“garrulous” and “bawdy.” True, one hears traces of
every barrelhouse belter from Lizzie Miles to Belle Barth in her blue-tinged Big Mama baritone, but since I
first became aware of this formidable performer at old, defunct clubs like
Eighty-Eights and the Firebird, I have rarely witnessed so profound a change in
an artist’s style and repertoire. The refined folks who prefer soft,
subtle, smoky voices like June Christy, Peggy Lee and Julie London may find her
an acquired taste. God knows, she’s no Blossom Dearie.
She’s not even a blossom. A full-bodied tiger lily is more like it. But
what she does with what she’s got is pure dynamite.
Glowing and radiant and
several pounds lighter than when I saw her last, she is in better shape than
ever, both physically and vocally. Her choices in material still reflect too
many pop-rock ballads that sound like dirges to my ears. Too many mediocre
wastes of time about wondering what might have been, taking the wrong roads
through life, and asking “What if?” “I want to feel the touch
of my own skin against the sun and against the wind,” she cries. Oh, get
over it. But singing them all in a deep, powerful basso profundo,
she grows on you, like ivy. Without much analysis, I have come to realize
it’s not the songs she sings that counts; it’s the way she sings
them. And she’s obviously in love with lyrics. She sings so many songs I
never want to hear again that when she throws in a beautifully modulated
classic like “This Nearly Was Mine” from South Pacific, it almost comes
as a shock to the nervous system. But this is happening more and more. She now
trusts herself enough to follow the tiresome “Spinning Wheel” with Kander and Ebb’s “I Don’t Remember
You.” With the help of her eclectic pianist-arranger-music conductor Ross
Patterson, she even surprises with great time and tempo on a rowdy,
finger-snapping version of “T’ain’t
Nobody’s Business If I Do” that Nellie Lutcher would envy. The
patter rambles. She talks about landing in Hair after 13 auditions. She talks about having 17 teeth
capped without novocaine. Not always mesmerizing. But
she always bounces back, holding her audience in the palm of her hand with
passion and a personality warm as sable. Her intensely felt “Why Did I
Choose You” is unlike any version I’ve ever heard. She used to fear
the great American songs sung by the great American song stylists. The Great
American Songbook was not her Bible. Now she’s freer, surer of herself
and feeling more comfortable in her own skin. Never before could she have
tackled the Gershwins’ “They Can’t
Take That Away From Me” with a spin so unprecedented. And she does it all
with a humorous heart and a smile wide as the Mississippi. She holds court for
another week at the Metropolitan Room on West 22 Street. If Baby Jane Dexter is
an acquired taste, it’s one I have cultivated joyfully.
Rex Reed – NY Observer
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Palm Beach Post
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
MUSIC REVIEW
New slants on old standards
______________________
Dexter inhabits a
cherished favorite
and makes it new.
______________________
By SHARON McDANIEL
Palm Beach Post Music
Writer
Candy Man has always
enjoyed a carefree innocence. The gentle melody swings; the beat is so
up,
it's almost giddy.
But when cabaret star Baby Jane Dexter gets
her hands on it, off comes the polite, sunny veneer.
She homes in on the lyrics, illustrates them with a few
detailed and well-calculated movements. And
the light traipse through a hallucinogenic jungle.
The drama is often dark, but not completely. Dexter
can't resist side trips into the cynical and the comedic.
To hear Dexter is to get real, then go
deeper: Friday night, she plunged thye Royal
Room into swift
currents of pop, R&B, songbook and gospel for her
return to The Colony Hotel. Her new show, You're Following Me, also
the title of her new live CD, leads listeners into life a la Dexter: the
joys,
sorrows, recoveries and discoveries.
She also sang the title songt
by Bacharach in a show based on the ups and downs of love -- who's really got
who, anyway? -- and other self-inflicted obsessions (there are always ice cream
and chocolate, aren't there?).
Best of the up side were Kern's Only Make
Believe and Noble's The Very Thought of You. The
down side crashed in seismic waves: Dexter became
her most volatile in Damn Your Eyes; she
bowled you over with a wrenching Precious Pain (Etheridge).
Dexter uses her large contralto voice to set
moods and to treat the words with utmost respect. It's a
voice that creates images and stretches as far as
possible for the perfect effect. It allows for a fast in-and-
out of many songs, each a meticulous mini-scene.
And she's got a smoking' low D that'll knock you back
against your seat.
It she's less able to caress long lines or
float ethereal high notes, so be it. But then, you're there to hear
her play by her rules -- including reinventing iconic
songs. She's half in and half out of the score for Some
Enchanted Evening -- her improvised version is even more
emotive.
The Everly
Brothers launched All I Have to Do Is Dream; Dexter gave it new
depth with her own tempo and phrasing. Barely a thread of the original You
Really Rot a Hold on Me remained in her updated style. And
her compositional powers were right on.
If her new Fools Rush In (Mercer) had
the fervor of an anthem, her finale, Forever Young, had the prayerful
conviction of gospel.
Baby Jane Dexter's show continues Friday and
Saturday at The Colony Hotel's Royal Room, 155 Hammon
Ave., Palm Beach. Doors open for dinner at 6:45
p.m.; the show starts around 8 p.m. For reservations __
$90 dinner and show, $50 show only with $15 beverage/food
minimum -- call (561) 659-8100.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
JAZZ TIMES MAGAZINE
June 2008
You¹re Following Me! (Quannacut)
If the word ³cabaret² conjures images of satin-gowned chanteuses and
tuxedoed gents trilling sophisticated, slightly salty tunes, then it¹s time
to shake things up. The best antidote to those old-school,
cocktails-and-candlelight perceptions? Baby Jane Dexter. The gutsy New
Yorker with a voice as big as all outdoors and a style that¹s
equal parts
Ethel Merman, Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Judy Garland and Sophie Tucker has
been working her unique brand of raucous magic at various Manhattan clubs
and theaters on-and-off for more than three decades.
Time has mellowed the let-it-all-hang-out Dexter a wee bit‹enough that
this,
her second live album (following the aptly-titled, decade-old Big, Bad and
Blue Live!) is constructed as much of velvet as it is of buckram. Whether
thundering through Leon Russell¹s ³Superstar,²
wailing on Leiber and
Stoller¹s ³Love Potion No.
9,² gently navigating the soft folds of Kern and
Hammerstein¹s ³Make Believe² and Ray Noble¹s ³The Very Thought of You² or
constructing a brilliantly funny, self-deprecating tale of chocolate
addiction around the Bacharach-penned title tune, one truth rings out:
Dexter is, both personally and professionally, a savvy survivalist. Which
makes her brand of entertainment arguably the most compellingly,
refreshingly honest there is. - Christopher Loudon
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE
FOLLOWING ME – Davenport's,
Chicago
CHICAGO READER
October 4, 2007
Critics Choice, BABY JANE DEXTER
The centerpiece of Baby Jane Dexter's new show, You're
Following Me, is a medley of songs from three distinctly different eras:
a playfully sambafied
version of "Love Potion No.9," an achingly
slow reading of the Cotton Club classic "Wail of the Reefer Man," and
a sly, sultry rendition of
"Candy Man." A mainstay of New York's cabaret scene off and on
since the 1970's, Dexter is equally comfortable
in the realms of pop, musical comedy,
blues, and R & B. Her eclectic program ranges from Rodgers and
Hammerstein to Lennon and McCartney,
from Leon Russell's gospel-tinged
"Superstar" to the rollicking boogie-woogie original "Ring Baby
Ring." An extra-large woman with a voice
to match (her raspy also and resonant
low range invite comparisons to Bessie Smith, Etta James, Odetta,
Judy Hensky, and Janis Joplin), Dexter
grounds her musical variety in a
simple but intense commitment to lyrics. Whether she's teasing the feline
sensuality of the old Peggy Lee tune
"Sneakin'
Up on You" or floating through Melissa Etheridge's poignant "Precious
Pain," she explores obsession with passion, humor and gutlevel
honesty. See also Friday and
Saturday.
*8 PM, Davenport's Piano Bar & Cabaret, 1383 N.
Milwaukee, 773-278-1830
$20
-Albert Williams
TimeOut Chicago
October 4-10, 2007
MUSIC Jazz & experimental
Baby
Jane Dexter - Davenport's 8pm, $20
Her emotional vulnerability is the
only thing babyish about Dexter, who can break your heart in a single line.
You can't do that if you don't know the song ten ways to Sunday, and Dexter
gives you all the fun you could ask for on a Saturday night
(her weekday shows will likely be fun, too!)
When listening to Baby Jane Dexter, you find yourself sitting right in
the middle of her life. A lot has gone on to bring her to this place you're
sharing with her: relationships, disappointments, "crutches" made of
smoke and chocolate, and she's willing openly talk about it through her music.
Exposing her wide-ranging influences, Baby Jane dips into classic stage
numbers, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, pop and little know gems from the
past. The themes are specifically chosen with the purpose of expressing loves
travail: the heartache and pain, -the coping, and finally, the hope of feeling
that "zing" again; as foolish as she may feel that it may be to want
it.
Her voice also tells us a story about where she's been and who she's all about.
At times there is a soulful, sultry tone to her rich alto that is reminiscent
of a Cissy Houston and at other times there is a
lushness that overflows from her lips like a Taylor Dane.
We can surmise that the Beatles, Elvis Presley and Melissa
Etheridge have influenced her music and that singers such as Angela Motter, Elaine Delmar, and Judy Garland were also
instrumental in touching Baby Jane=s life.
With a sensitivity for the arrangements and the venue, George Howe adds another
layer of sophistication to Baby Jane's performance. He masterfully supports and
nurtures the relationship between the audience and Baby Jane from the piano as
she expresses herself through cabaret.
Together in the intimate setting that
is the "backroom" at Davenport's, Baby Jane Dexter with George Howe
as Musical Director will leave you wanting to hear more.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE
FOLLOWING ME – Metropolitan
Room
"...the very best act of her career...heartbreaking
enough to knock your socks off!"
Rex
Reed, The New York Observer, Feb.14, 2007
"...Ms. Dexter has the power of
a mighty gospel singer with the will to move heaven and earth!"
Stephen
Holden, The New York Times, Feb.20, 2007
"In a tidal wave of raw emotion,
Baby Jane Dexter has brought her latest and possibly finest outing to the
Metropolitan Room at Gotham!" John
Hoglund, Theater Scene.net,
Feb.16, 2007
"If you've got the balls to join
a red hot mama on a collision course with raw emotions, she'll leave you
feeling stronger and more alive than you did when you walked in!"
James Gavin, TimeOut/NewYork, Feb.15,
2007
"...Shooting sparks...a memory
of make believe...I was doubly swept by emotion!"
Jerry
Tallmer, Chelsea Now, Feb.16,
2007
"Baby Jane-- the Emeril of cabaret.
Each show she 'kicks it up another notch?!'?
Stu Hamstra, Cabaret Hotline, Feb.12,
2007
"With her voice richer than ever...combined
with her story-telling ways with a lyric, the effect is riveting
rightness!"
Peter Hass, Cabaret Scenes, Feb.8, 2007
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Holding court at the
hot new Metropolitan Club (through Feb. 24), Baby Jane Dexter reminds me of
colored lights, forbidden absinthe, and big brass beds. If she'd lived in the New Orleans red-light
district in a previous era, she would have been the most popular white girl in Storyville. Her specialty is hot-foot barrelhouse and
wrist-slashing blues, which she wails like nobody's business, and her fans lap
it up like howling hound dogs, hungry for more.
I always liked her raucous style, but I never expected to hear standards
from the Great American Song Book in her repertoire. On this, the very best act of her career,
she's finally discovered classics by Kern, Hart, and Johnny Mercer, too. And I'm happy to report that her lived-in
baritone gives them a personal spin as unique as it is intense. On Make
Believe, she phrases behind the beat.
On Some Enchanted Evening
there's no beat at all. She doesn't even
follow Richard Rodgers' melody. But she makes
you feel the subtext of the emotions hiding in Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics. She sings a Harold Arlen song about a reefer
man, a Leslie Bricusse-Anthony Newley
song about a candy man, and a Lieber-Stoller song
about a Love Potion Number 9 with
equal grit and aplomb. She also tells
about her own 12-step program to overcome a fatal addicton
to--- frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity. Simply hilarious. Then, without a bathroom break, she wafts
dreamily into a rapturous Fools Rush In,
heartbreaking enough to knock your socks off.
The best way to appreciate her unusual musical candor is to stop
resisting her and give in. Baby Jane
just kind of overwhelms you. And bless
her pointed head, she does not sing My
Funny Valentine. – On
The Town With Rex Reed, N.Y. Observer
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Think of a deep, strong rolling river of song, carrying
you with it. Add sparkling, sun-dappled highlights of a piano - and you come
close to Baby Jane Dexter's singing, with Ross Patterson's accompaniment, in
Baby Jane's new show, You're Following Me! at the Metropolitan Room.
With her voice richer than ever, Baby Jane delivers powerful, swooping musical
lines that sometimes, purposely, take license with the originals, peppering her
songs with the unexpected. Combined with her story-telling ways with a lyric,
the effect is riveting rightness. Ross Patterson, Baby Jane's long-time musical
arranger and accompanist, has now brought in Steve Doyle on bass and David Silliman on drums; the trio's rhythmic platform, with its
own highlights, lets Baby Jane take off and soar. Continuing, subtle changes in
lighting, via Jean-Pierre Perrault, contribute neatly
to keeping a one-woman show from appearing static. Presenting a mixture of
standards, show tunes, 60s songs and other material, Baby Jane - with her
irrepressible good nature and sense of humor - continues to offer one of
cabaret's best evenings. Peter Haas,
Cabaret Scenes
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Having attended Baby Jane Dexter's Time Travel (A
retrospective,) on its opening night when it first ran at the
Hideaway Room at Helen's in November 2005, I decided to revisit the show last
week to view the live recording event at the Metropolitan Room and simply enjoy
it without taking notes. I remember it was filled with great material performed
by one who isn't capable of not being the real thing. Besides, since I am
broadening my easel into the world of producing live recordings, I was curious.
After all, this room has turned into the major event of the cabaret season with
a promising future ahead.
Before I hit the door, I was
engaged in a lengthy conversation with Joy Behar about the late Bistro Bits columnist Bob
Harrington waxing about how much a Back
Stage review meant to her when she was just getting started. Nice. She had
just hosted her new children's book release party at the club and a sea of
people were causing a traffic jam in front of the club (including a fleeting Bette Midler
trying to make her exit unnoticed.) BTW: Earlier, at the book party, Midler was
overheard asking Baby Jane, "Didn't we play this place ages ago??")
Dexter laughed and told her old pal, "It just opened a couple of months
ago!"
Once inside, we were finally
seated and the evening's star made her way to the stage greeting well-wishers
along the way. Once the room fell silent, Dexter slowly began the melancholic,
words to For All We Know
(Lewis-Coots,) and then segued into a sizzling Until the Real Thing Comes Along (Holiner-Nichols-Chaplin
and Sammy Cahn). The room erupted into what would be
the first wave of spontaneous applause and cheers that was ongoing. It was only
the beginning of what would be one of those truly extraordinary nights that
only happens once in a blue moon in a cabaret setting. A night that cabaret was
once so full of in all the clubs. The ovations (and there were many) were led
by Julie Wilson, Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano
among many visiting press types along with fans and many
familiar faces in the crowd.
Adding to the pastiche, like a scene straight out of Follies, was the stunning Karen Akers who would later recall the
days when they were back at Reno Sweeney in the mid-'70s.
After a few hiccups in her
professional and personal life, Baby Jane Dexter has climbed the ranks in the
clubs, found a new voice (after a long hiatus) and juxtaposed a waning career
into one of the single most beloved and in demand night club artists of our
day. While she may seem like the last of a dying breed of singers from the
school of greats like Sylvia Sims and Blossom Dearie
- Dexter remains without peer in a confusing world of wannabes, monied dilettantes and newcomers who need to experience one
of her shows to know what the real thing is really about. At a time when many
are seeking a new ambassador or a new voice to save cabaret from expulsion, the
best example out there, by far, is this gravely voiced contralto with the huge
heart whose status cannot be ignored. That is not to say that others aren't
also in the mix of those climbing the ranks. But Baby Jane Dexter proved with
this one sold out show that the magical journey from Reno Sweeney to that night
last week was worth her lifetime of blood, sweat and tears. she is raw. She is
bold and beautiful in a way that we may never see again in our times. By the
time she closed and sang her own version of More,
one of several closing numbers, most of the room was on its feet with those up
front reaching out to touch her, much the way Garland's audience once did at
her concerts. This scene was a first for me in cabaret. It was reassuring, it
was life-affirming and it was moving. Whatever else is wrong with cabaret today
is fixable and replaceable. But there is only one Baby Jane Dexter. And that's
all there is to know.
--John Hoglund,
October 12, 2006, BACK STAGE
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In the world of cabaret, where the adjective
“legendary” with a singer’s name means as much as
“touchy” with “tenor,” BABY JANE DEXTER sings in a realm all her own. From early Broadway
classics to the day-before-yesterday pop standards, this baby has been belting
since she first made a splash back in the ’70s. Think Rita Coolidge meets
Rosemary Clooney, with a dollop of Janis & Lady Day. Don’t expect
soft crooning: Even in the tiny back room at Helen’s, a hole-in-the-wall
tucked into Chelsea’s Eighth Avenue Strip, she sings to the (nonexistent)
balcony. After battling myriad health and personal problems, Dexter is the
classic comeback kid. This is what New York cabaret is supposed to be—and
all too often isn’t: a highly personal journey of a performer who makes
you believe you’re the only other person in the room. Steve Weinstein, NY Press, April 2006
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Having a good voice is only a small part of what's needed to
be a good singer, especially when you're singing in intimate venues.
From the moment
she begins her show singing For all we
know we may never meet again in a haunting, raspy baritone, Baby Jane
Dexter wields an eerie power and glory rarely found on a cabaret stage. She has the uncanny ability to unearth new
meaning in evergreens and to personalize torchy
ballads with a sense of hope. There are
few people in cabaret capable of expressing such depth of feeling; Julie Wilson
quickly comes to mind. Dexter, a cabaret
and blues titan, roared back into the Hideaway Room @ Helen's with her red-hot
new show, 'Time Travel,' in late
November and is still performing weekends through January. It is a retrospective that includes one of
the best song lists of the year in one of the best shows of the year, with the
remarkable Ross Patterson as arranger and musical director.
Dexter sings a mix
of R&B and jazz-fused stylings of songs written
by the diverse likes of Abbey Lincoln, Sammy Cahn,
Tom Waits, Clint Black, and Bistro Award winner Eric Hansen. Hopelessly honest, gunny, and often deeply
poignant, she can be sassy one minute and break your heart the next in this
electric show that has turned into one of the must-see events of the
season. Dexter has her audience in
stitches recalling her first paid gig.
She opened for a stripper on Long Island who had a rubber snake burst
out of a G-string.
Aside from the new
gems, Dexter has thrown in requested songs from the past associated with her
career. Among the highlights are
Hansen's 'Big Bodied Woman' and Patsy
Moore's gorgeous 'I Remember.' She brings inner peace to Tom Waits' 'San Diego Serenade' ('I never heard the
melody till I needed the song'). 'Spend My Time' (Clint Black-Hayden Nicholas)
echoes the desperate heartbreak of then and now by one who has lived it.
A master at
cutting to the bond of a song, she is able to pour real bitterness into the
pop-blues genre without embalming the material with faux mourning. These same songs can be and have been
interpreted as melodramatic dirges; in Dexter's hands, the past may have had
some bumps but the future paints a rainbow.
Regardless of what the naysayers natter about the state of cabaret, with Baby Jane Dexter
(and a handful of others who know what they're doing) it doesn't get much
better. Go!
John Hoglund, Backstage Bistro Bits, January 26 -
February 1, 2006
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Abbey Lincoln's great folk-jazz song
"Throw It Away" revolves
around the phrase "You can never lose a thing if it belongs to you."
Those words go a long way toward describing the spirit conveyed by Baby Jane
Dexter, the blues-oriented cabaret singer who performs the song in her new
show, "Time Travels," at
Helen's.
For more than three decades, but with
interruptions, Ms. Dexter, the leonine singer with a rough, hefty contralto,
has been toiling in the cabaret vineyards for minimal reward. Songs like "Throw It Away" and "I Got Thunder," another
Abbey Lincoln song in her program, evoke the kind of courage, independence and
faith it takes to keep singing out while hanging from a ledge by your
fingernails.
In one amusing monologue, Ms. Dexter recalls
her very first singing engagement at an Italian nightclub in East Islip, N.Y.,
opening for a stripper named Brigitte who wore a trick G-string out of which
shot out a rubber bat. (Ms. Dexter had expected the headliner to be someone
like Vic Damone.)
Her pay then - $50 - was not much better than it is today, she
half-joked.
A large, blunt woman, Ms. Dexter may
not be demure, but she is tasteful in a smart, regal, big-mama way, and she
gets better each year. Her choice of well-made but often obscure soul, blues
and jazz songs that play to her contradictory mixture of the lusty and the
philosophical is astute. And her emphatic phrasing puts these songs across as
life lessons offered in a tone of good-humored authority. No matter how down
and out a song's sentiments, Ms. Dexter conveys the resilience of someone who
looks for a silver lining while still bracing for the worst.
By her side is her accompanist of 14
years, Ross Patterson, who does his impressive best to turn the piano into a
one-man blues and soul band. Someday it would be a treat to hear that piano
augmented by a bass and drums, an addition that would give Ms. Dexter's singing
the rhythmic kick it deserves.
– Stephen Holden, NY Times,
December 2005
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Baby's Breath
Now there's
the autumnally burnished incarnation. Which is to say, the current
Hideaway Room @ Helen's run represents a no less thrilling career stage but a
stage noticeably altered. Baby Jane Dexter of the booming voice of the
train-approaching belter configuration is no
longer. Or at least she's not front-and-center. A changed, evolving
Baby Jane Dexter is on display. Whereas previous BJDs
were always quirkily philosophical in both song and patter, the quirky
philosophy is now the manifestation of a more ruminative, older-but-wiser
troubadour. "You just never know when things are going to come
clear," she sums up at the end of one of her folksy, subtly enlightening
anecdotes.
The voice
may be the reason for the re-thinking. Maybe not. But it's
definitely changed. Still a commanding and joyful rumble in the lower
register and acceptably secure in the middle register, it's frayed in the upper
register, not so much gravelly as pebbly. There are even numbers where,
like a bigger-boned Mabel Mercer, she speak-sings, For Every Man There's a Woman (Leo Robin-Harold Arlen), for example,
or carefully marshals her breathing the For
All We Know (Sam M. Lewis-J. Fred Coots) opener. Well-known for her
volunteer work, she's now offering nicely-couched advice for all by way of her
never-obvious song selections. Room for outright fun remains, though, as
evidenced with the extended, digressive Dirty
Man (Miller, the song list partially specifies). Yup, Baby Jane
Dexter is the same but different, and hooray for that. -David Finkle,
Ooh, Baby, Baby! Stop the presses! Baby Jane Dexter, one of cabaret's most ferocious divas, has mellowed. Much like a baseball pitcher who used to overpower the opposition with blazing fastballs but now dispatches batters with his accumulated wisdom, Baby Jane has gone from being a force of nature to a natural entertainer. If you don't believe us, check out her new show Time Travel at Helen's, which has just been extended through the end of January. The title references the fact that Dexter is revisiting songs from her critically acclaimed shows of the past, such as "I Got Thunder" and "Until The Real Thing Comes Along." New arrangements by her longtime musical director, Ross
Patterson, allow her to offer fresh takes on these old favorites; her phrasing and tempos are subtly different, and there is the sense that her interpretations are beingfiltered through her long career. When she sings "Throw It Away," another signature song, you know it's from the heart. Baby Jane is not living in the past; rather, she is reinventing herself for the future. Her patter, which has delighted some audience members and irked others over the past three decades, has also been toned down. It's still playful, but now there is something rueful in it. All in all, this is a gentler Baby Jane -- and this persona suits her perfectly.
---
Barbara and Scott Siegel, Theatremania, December
2005
There's Ellis
Island, Bloomingdale's, the Central Park Zoo, and Baby Jane Dexter. All are Big
Apple landmarks, but only one would dare to transform the Rolling Stones' 19th Nervous Breakdown into a Jacques Brel ballad.
Yes, we're
alluding here to the enthralling Baby Jane, a beloved songstress who's been discharging
tunes with her high-powered vocal chords from the times when there were hippies
on St. Marks Place, Mayor Koch was a liberal, and Kathie Lee Gifford was
kosher. Gay boys of a certain age still have her photos magnet-ed to their
refrigerators, and no wonder. Just ask -The New York Times' Stephen Holden who
once proclaimed: "Baby Jane Dexter may be the most talented singer within
a time-honored genre of cabaret performer."
Currently letting
loose at Helen's-one of the best new cabarets in town, which serves, by the
way, a mean veggie burger with crisp fries-Baby Jane is having an intimate
blast with her fans.
The act, which can
also be brought on home on her new CD, Baby Jane Dexter Bootlegs Herself,
begins with the aforementioned Breakdown
and ends with Love's Been Good to Me. In between, there's a memorable cover of the
Young Rascals' How Can I be Sure, a
convincing They Can't Take That Away From
Me, and an instructive Be Cool. - - Brandon
Judell
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The
tender side of night
Baby
Jane Dexter shows her softer, gentler side at Helen’s Hideaway
And
the lioness shall lie down with the lamb. Baby Jane Dexter, the downtown diva,
has always been a great many of God’s creatures wrapped into one, but in
her current show at Helen’s, just to the left of the Joyce Theater, on
Eighth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets, the roaring, stomping lioness is
playing peekaboo, popping in, popping out, but mostly
letting that other side of BJ take over the
thoughtful, sensitive, aching, probing investigator of emotional loss and gain.
Even
her great flaming mane has been tamed, transformed, into a long, gleaming, lovely
pony tail, as if by the magic of some Jean Cocteau ‘belle et bete’ hairdresser.
Don’t
look for that frightening, disturbing 15 Ugly Minutes on the Bottom of the
Floor, her long-ago personal memoir of an even longer-ago rape. Just delight in
the segue from a gutbucket Sophie Tucker/Texas Guinan
‘Some of These Days? (‘Did you leave me? It will grieeeeeve me.’) to the dark brooding honey-smooth
flow of ‘I Concentrate on You, Cole Porter’s hunger a la Dexter.
Or
a seesaw jaunt from a Gershwins’ classic,
”They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” to Hoagy
Carmichael’s down-home “Bread and Gravy”
rendered by the lioness side of BJ so as to restore
real meaning to the words ‘rock’ and ‘roll.’
Don’t think for a minute she’s lost her sense of humor, the
offbeat, unpredictable stuff that is pure Baby Jane, like her tale of finding
behind the piano in her apartment,which has had so
many paint jobs, it’s getting smaller, a 10-year-old sackful
of yellow crime-scene police tape. Why? Who knows?
Speaking of pianos, Dexter gives Ross
Patterson, her music director these past 14 years, every possible opportunity
to go crazy on the keys. They are a remarkable pair. And lioness or lamb, Baby
Jane Dexter is one of a kind, a force of nature for fury or for reflective
calm. She will be at Helen’s, formerly Judy’s through May 28, and
the gig is now also available as a “Bread & Gravy” CD. – Downtown Express,
"Oh,
Baby!
In her most compelling and risky show to date, Baby Jane Dexter contorts to
such extraordinary emotional heights, she may well be called the Cirque du Soleil of cabaret. Like a
twisted torso configured high above the audience, she twists and rotates every
nuance with the grace of a high-wire walker - or the desperation of a woman
who's spent too much time alone in an empty room.
In this sensational show, "Bread & Gravy," running
on weekends at the Hideaway Room's Helen's through December 18, Dexter fuses the music of Joni Mitchell with the
likes of R. E. M., Rod McKuen, Cole Porter, the Gershwins and the Rolling Stones among others. A blues belter of Olympian proportions, she brings stormy
resolution to a world shattered by loss and loneliness through her songs. In
the end, her message is one of hope. But the journey getting there is as
shattering as it is euphoric. This makes the trip one of overwhelming emotion.
Returning to her jazz and r & b roots,
Dexter echoes a breed of performer we may never see again. She's a blues mama
who can sound guttural and still break your heart. This she did with a
sizzling, ragtime "Good Old Wagon" (John Henry,) made famous by
Bessie Smith. Joni Mitchell's rarity,
"Two Grey Rooms," may be the most definitive song of loss and
obsession ever written. Cole Porter's 1940 "I Concentrate on You,"
pulsates with emotion. Dexter, singing better then she has in years, inhabits
every lyric with the same emotional commitment that Sinatra was famous for.
Musical director Ross Patterson's arrangements are rhapsodic and jazz tinged.
The end results are the season's most rewarding show that should not be missed
by anyone who wants to see how to get it right - albeit on the cabaret stage or
the stage of life. Go!" - John Hogland, Backstage Bistro Bits, December 2004
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mike Joyce
Washington
Post, March 8, 2004
"You
missed the loud and good part," cabaret vocalist Baby Jane
Dexter
told a latecomer at the Rosslyn Spectrum on Saturday
night.
But
there were more loud and good parts to come. Dexter belted out
songs
with such old-fashioned gusto that the venue's sound system,
when it
was working properly, seemed rather redundant.
Despite
amplification glitches and a disappointing turnout, the
concert
revealed Dexter's abundant charm and power, to say nothing of
her
far-reaching repertoire. The challenge of performing songs
associated
with Blood, Sweat and Tears, Frank Sinatra, Randy Newman,
Abbey
Lincoln, Joe Cocker, the Beatles, Screamin' Jay
Hawkins and
Josh White
is something few singers would welcome. Yet Dexter loves
to
juggle genres and moods. She gets a kick out of toying with
audience
expectations, juxtaposing classic pop tunes with Top 40
favorites,
vintage singalong novelties with something slow and
quiet
and
bittersweet. Though she's obviously a sucker for brash
showstoppers,
Dexter is also drawn to poignant meditations, and she's
capable
of extracting deeply felt emotions from even the most
shopworn
lyric.
Her
current show, developed with pianist and longtime collaborator
Ross
Patterson, could use some tightening between songs -- more
anecdotes
and fewer rambling asides would help. Patterson served as
both
sensitive accompanist and one-man orchestra, creating elegant
backdrops
for the ballads and animating some of the up-tempo tunes
with a
delightfully percussive and rollicking keyboard attack.
Although the local
press has kept this one of the best-kept secrets
in D.C.,
Baby Jane Dexter will be giving a concert at the Rosslyn
Spectrum
Theater across the river from Georgetown at 1611 North Kent
Street
on this Saturday night at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 and,
unfortunately,
plenty are still available. I was advised that there
is no
need for reservations. Just showing up at the box office is
required,
and there is free parking a block away. Although Baby Jane
has at
least one quite outspoken non-fan here, many of us admire her
work,
including Our Own Audrey Morris, who saw her perform in Chicago
several
months ago and said she was terrific. I hope the locals will
turn out
to welcome her. – joel siegel
TimeOutNewYork :
recommended
November 25 - December 1, 2004
Baby Jane Dexter: Bread and Gravy
The Hideaway Room @ Helen's, 9:15pm. $25
The lusty roar of a revivalist in full cry, the lion's mane of streaked blonde
hair, the never-say-die message of hope---all this comes in the imposing figure
of Baby Jane Dexter, one of the more acclaimed cabaret singers of the past 30
years. Her new show, Bread and Gravy, combines Bessie Smith, the Stones,
Porter, Gershwin and Rod McKuen. Dexter
connects with each song on a visceral level, challenging you to feel what she
feels; if you've got the balls to join a red-hot mama on a collision course
with raw emotion, she'll leave you feeling stronger and more alive than you did
when you walked in.
“Ms. Dexter, a singer who takes pains
to defy expectations both in her choices of material and her
interpretations… She is a natural rock-blues belter
who restrains her impulse to shout, the better to explore a song's
interior… In her new show, which plays Thursdays through Saturdays
through Dec. 18, every song Ms. Dexter and her pianist, Ross Patterson, choose
is given a fresh slant. Whether it's an emotionally vulnerable rendition of
Sophie Tucker's theme song, "Some of These Days" or the Rascals' 1967
hit, "How Can I Be Sure?" the associations crusted on songs we think
we know are scraped away to reveal undiscovered facets.” Stephen Holden, NY Times. November 2004
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
BREAD & GRAVY
Hideaway Room at Helen's
A force of nature has hit the stage at
Helen's. Big, powerful, beautiful and witty, Baby Jane Dexter isn't your
diminutive girl singer. The minute she walks out, rearranging the audience
before she starts her show, one knows this will be an evening to remember!
This was an evening mostly about hearing new songs, or old, familiar ones, done
in new exciting ways. Ross Patterson has provided Baby Jane with arrangements
that are unexpected and that give the audience deep glimpses into new meaning
and new awareness of these songs. From the very first song, the Jagger/Richards 19th Nervous Breakdown, one heard,
probably for the first time, the lyrics and the story within this rock classic.
There was a haunting sadness in Joni Mitchell's Two Grey Rooms, about
someone retreating from life to watch a great love from afar. Baby Jane later
described as that urge one has to spy at someone from behind a tree. Later in
the show, Baby Jane showed another side of Joni Mitchell, outlining the ways to
Be Cool. Two other contemporary pop
songs to receive these inventive arrangements by Ross Patterson were the soul
classic, How Can I Be Sure and John Hiatt's country-style ditty, An
Arm and a Leg.
And yes, there were the songs from the Great American Songbook, but done
in new ways that required the listener to hear them in different ways, finding
new meanings, new shading, almost making them new songs. There was a jazzy, uptempo They Can't Take That Away From Me, a
melancholy Some Of These Days with He Was Too Good To Me woven
into it, a high energy Strayhorn classic, Imagine
My Frustration and a joyous Carmichael song, Bread and Gravy, in
which Baby Jane determined life is better with "a lot of gravy". In
Baby Jane's hands, along with Ross' incredible arrangement, Cole Porter's I
Concentrate On You became a slow, powerful ballad which found Baby Jane
lingering on the lyrics, forcing the audience to listen, to hear, this song in
a fresh way.
During the evening, Baby Jane used the metaphor comparing life to searching for
lost keys, one often finds things that one is happy to find, and sometimes
things that should have stayed "lost". There were many things I was
happy to find in this show, and nothing that should have stayed lost!
Baby Jane closed her evening with Rod McKuen's Love's
Been Good To Me, a deeply moving song which brought tears to my eyes.
Later, Baby Jane told me she was thinking of the same person I was thinking
about while she sang this song. For her encore, she sang her signature power
ballad, Everybody Hurts.
As Baby Jane sang in Comes Love
”Comes rain, put your rubber on your feed
Comes a snow, you can get a little heat
Comes love, nothing can be done”
So comes Baby Jane, and everything IS done, and done extremely well! I highly
recommend seeing this show, now scheduled to run through December, at Helen's
Hideaway Room in Chelsea.” -- MN nyc.com.
Entering The
Hideaway Room at Helen’s to premier her new show, Baby Jane looked
around, saw that the audience was scatter-seated a long the sides and back of
the room, and stopped in her tracks. “No!” she boomed! “I
can’t sing like that! Come closer!” Whereupon clusters of the
audience took their drinks and moved to seats nearer the stage. Such is Baby
Jane’s rapport with her audience, and its deep affection for her, that
when she speaks, we pay attention. When she performs, we listen even more
attentively: her strong singing, smoother and more lyrical than ever; her
interpretations of familiar songs that give them new texture; and the rich
arrangements provided by musical director Ross Patterson (whom Baby Jane labels
“totally ridiculously wonderful”) all combine to provide a riveting
show. Her rollicking, rolling rendition of the Gershwins’
They Can’t Take That Away From Me, quite un-Astaire,
makes you hear the song as if for the first time; ditto for her slowed-down,
gutsy version of Some of These Days and her dark, rumbling reading of
Cole Porter’s I Concentrate On You. Her blues can’t be beat,
such as J. Henry’s Good Old Wagon and Rod McKuen’s
Love’s Been Good To Me. Among other writers represented: Hoagy Carmichael, Joni Mitchell, Rodgers & Hart and
Mick Jagger. Baby Jane’s show is called Bread
& Gravy, and subtitled — in Baby Jane’s typical style of
joking and being deeply serious at the same time — “a lyrical
journey … backwards through a life of love, loss, and figuring it all
out.” Figuring THAT out may take time; a better use of it is to hustle on
down to Helen’s to catch Baby Jane in one of the year’s grandest
shows” -- Peter Haas, Cabaret Scenes, November 2004
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"In
her exceptional show at Arci's Place, four-time MAC
Award-winner Baby Jane Dexter takes you on a vivid emotional journey. The 16
songs she sings have been chosen and sequenced so that the whole evening is
greater than the sum of its parts.
In her rich-voiced opener she generously promises: "I'll show you love,
I'll show you everything . . . with arms wide open."
Later she sings, "I want a sweet, simple love."
But the next song ratchets up the intensity level, as her needs become more
primal: "I want more," she proclaims repeatedly, a woman not to be
denied. It's a high point of a wonderful show.
She lets us see her at her most vulnerable, pleading touchingly - via the
Billy Strayhorn/Duke Ellington classic - for
"Something to Live For."
And she is also the height of compassion, as one who's known the depths of
despair and wants others not to give up (lest she herself give up). When she
sings "Everybody Hurts" it's positively therapeutic.
Whether she's doing familiar old favorites or the little-known rarities that
seem custom-tailored for her, Dexter sings with drama and conviction. You
believe her.
In fact, when she's singing about someone she's dumping, her scorn and
bitterness are so withering, it can get downright uncomfortable - you just
might not want to feel that much negative emotion.
Ross Patterson, Dexter's pianist of 10 years, matches her moods as they
shift from moment to moment. His commanding playing - always in rapport, and
full of graceful surprises - is a model of what accompaniment should
be." Chip Defaa, NY Post,
Dec. 2001
"Can a singer be fiercely raw and finely polished all at once?
Cabaret singer Baby Jane Dexter is living proof of that possibility -- she combines
the bluesy fire and grit of Janis Joplin with the sheer focal power and
technique of an operatic alto. Her new show at Arci's
Place, With Eyes Wide Open, is named... for the hit by grunge rock unit
Creed... She chooses between songs by R.E.M. ands
Bob Dylan... Rodgers & Hammerstein... Billie Holliday and Ellington/Strahorn... What she draws out from all of this material is
the bluesy soul common to them all -- rock, Broadway and jazz all owe enormous
debts to the blues, and when Baby Jane sings, it's payback time. Jonathan
Warman, HX
Magazine.
"Hearing her hefty delivery in a blue-tinged contralto is a reminder of
how out of style the sort of full-tilt rock singing at which Ms. Dexter excels
has become. In a pop climate dominated by girlish voices and exhibitionistic belters who confuse melismatic
overkill with depth, Ms. Dexter keeps things refreshingly blunt and earthy...
As strongly as her vibrato suggests a lower-register echo of Ronnie Spector, her reach extends beyond rock to show tunes and
popular standards, which she stamps with a strong personal imprint.
The high point of her new show is a medley of "You Don't Know What Love
Is" and "Something to Live For," in which Ms. Dexter delivers
lyrics into short, jabbing bursts, so that a line like "you don't know how
lips hurt" takes on a accusatory resonance that captures the song's bitter
essence. The rich, spiky jazz pianism of Ms. Dexter's longtime musical
director, Ross Patterson, lends the medley an extra depth of feeling." Stephen Holden, New
York Times, Dec. 2001.
"The title of Baby Jane’s new show at Arci’s Place is titled With Arms Wide Open, but she
communicates with her heart wide open. Expressive eyes that sweep across a
cabaret room like high beams on a dark and lonely highway light the way to her
soul, and she exposes that soul in one sensationally sung song after another.
Though we’ve heard her in better voice than at the
performance we attended, she sang with such ferocity that it hardly mattered...
Baby Jane has a mighty appetite for the blues, and she makes you feel her pain
when she sings “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” (Wohlford/Lewis).
She has an even greater appetite for love, as demonstrated in her renditions of
“I Want More” (Billie Holiday) and “Is You Is” (Austin/Jordan). While she is
known primarily as a blues singer, her show is finally less about heartbreak
and sorrow than it is about “Taking a Chance On Love”. Her version of that
Duke/Latouche/Fetter standard takes its own chances
with a playful jazz arrangement by her elegantly inventive musical
director/pianist, Ross Patterson... In this show, Baby Jane puts her indelible
and indomitable stamp on musical theater songs... she brings a knowing
and accepting ruefulness to a reading of “Hello Young Lovers” (also by R&H) that is shot through with romance. It’s lovely. Barbara & Scott Siegel, Theatremania.com, Dec. 2001
"Looking at a program, one might think the songs are familiar: Rodgers
and Hammerstein’s Hello, Young Lovers, for
example, or Taking a Chance on Love. Forget it. These songs were never
sung this way before. Baby Jane has an incredible ability to turn a tune into a
seeming autobiography. Her audience doesn’t get to
just listen; they share with her every experience. Billy Holiday’s
I Want More was mesmerizing, casting a spell that even Holiday would
have envied. And Baby Jane’s own Telephone Song,
written with Drey Sheppard, is – like the vocalist
herself – a knockout. If you miss this show, which is on until December 29th, you’ll kick yourself all through the New Year." Peter Leavy, Cabaret Scenes, Dec. 2001
"Never one to sit on a gossamer pillow of pop and patter, she is a stylist who combines elements of rock, blues and gospel to create a sound that is uniquely her own. Her voice is a brothel of spilled bourbon, scratched mahogany and unsated desire... Dexter's singing is nothing less than storytelling. And if a listener is willing to go there with her, she will take him on a journey that is exhausting and frightening, raw and visceral, yet wonderfully uplifting. Without apologies or embarrassment, she will scratch off every layer of makeup and put-on to show a face that is an accumulation of suffering and regret. She goes to quiet places by singing loud." Wendell Brock, The Atlantic Monthly, April 2001.
"Attitude
and manner, of one sort or another, are vital to anyone who steps onstage to
entertain. Baby Jane Dexter, who opened a six-night run at the Cinegrill on Tuesday....has plenty of both.
"Dexter's
between-songs patter was supported by a colorful imagination and sparked by an
ebullient personality. ..she demonstrated the versatility to cover all the
stylistic bases." Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times. 2001
"There are
moments when the leonine singer Baby Jane Dexter wields her potent two-part
voice with the force of a weapon. One part is a cabaret tragedienne whose
booming contralto plummets to depths where few female voices are capable of
going. The other is a raucous rock 'n' roller whose coarse vibrato spreads out
(like Ronnie Spector's) into the vocal equivalent of
a car zigzagging down the highway at 100 miles an hour.
Ms. Dexter knows exactly how to balance these two elements so that they compliment each other instead of conflicting. And in her new show, "Making Every Moment Count," which plays at the Firebird Cafe, 363 West 46th Street, Manhattan, through Dec. 30, even vintage popular standards by Rodgers and Hammerstein ("There Is Nothing Like a Dame") and Rodgers and Hart ("Everything I've Got") are pumped up with a cheeky rock 'n' roll zest.
Subtlety is not Ms. Dexter's forte. Every word out of her mouth has a blunt emphatic sense of purpose. One high point of her show is a full-tilt rendition of "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" that transforms a joyous movie song into an anthem ready-made for the Ronettes.
Digging into Randy Newman's abject ballad, "Guilty," a substance abuser's groveling confession of weakness and failure, Ms. Dexter brings out its lurking subtext.
Instead of a plea for forgiveness, she delivers it as a blast of defiance, an angry so-what, spit sarcastically in the face of a disapproving loved one.
The singer's gift for
clarity also enhances Abbey Lincoln's "Throw It Away," a versified
riddle about self- possession and letting things go whose punch line observes,
"You can never lose a thing if it belongs to you." Ms. Dexter
gleefully and with great good humor embraces her own rawness. It belongs to
her." Stephen Holden, New York Times, Dec. 2000.
"The
incomparable Baby Jane Dexter made her Davenport's Piano Bar and Cabaret debut
earlier this month in a dazzling show that surely ranks in the top 5 shows I
have ever seen to date. To put it bluntly, I was utterly blown away by this
dynamic woman with pipes of gold! ...
Each number seemed to top the previous one in this blockbuster piece of
entertainment. Her patter was perhaps the most perfect I have ever heard from a
cabaret performer. It was completely natural and never seemed too over staged,
as she shared some humorous and some poignant stories from her life. She had no
problem at all in tearing down the walls and opening up to the audience. "
Todd Shuman, Cabaret Hotline, October 2001
"Dexter isn't about making pretty, soothing sounds; in the tradition of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Judy Garland, she unleashes a firestorm of raw emotions, challenging audiences to acknowledge and heal their own wounds. In the course of an hour, she can shatter your heart and then, by the inevitable encore, reassemble the pieces." Joel E. Siegel, Washington City Paper, Feb. 2000
"Ms. Dexter doesn't read songs phrase by phrase for their literary nuances. She locates their emotional centers and stays there. On occasion, as in Madonna's 'You'll See,' she discovers another dimension to a song. The depth of her voice and the slowed-up arrangement of the song uncovered a level of hurt that Madonna's comparatively bratty interpretation only hints at." Stephen Holden, N.Y. Times, Dec. 1999.
"After Baby Jane Dexter's wall-shaking
interpretations of 'I Put A Spell on You' and 'Until the Real Thing Comes
Along' at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival's fund-raiser last spring, her
listeners reacted as they do not after 'Macbeth': they stood; they stomped;
they screamed." Alvin Klein, N.Y. Times, Nov. 1999.
"Dexter's long-anticipated major solo
concert debut brilliantly demonstrated her command over her audience, whether
she was shouting the blues, pondering the mysteries of Abbey Lincoln's 'Throw
It Away,' telling us with devastating comic timing how she planned to handle
one 'dirty, dirty man' or just sharing her heartfelt appreciation for the loyal
support cabaret audiences have shown her over the years...And she's never
sounded better. Relying on (Weill) hall's natural
acoustics...more of the beauty of her voice came through -- and the strength,
as she'd hurl staccato lines like thunderbolts." Chip Defaa,
New York Post, September 1998.
"Dexter gave more to her audience in this
90-minute (Weill Hall) concert than some performers
do in a lifetime. Many in the audience were in tears as they leaped to their
feet as she closed singing, "Forever Young." Then, in one of the
evening's most poignant moments, fighting back tears, she sang Rod McKuen's gem, "Love's Been Good to Me," saying,
as she whispered the final words, 'This is one of those moments.' It was."
John Hoglund, Back Stage Bistro Bits, October
1998.
"Baby Jane Dexter may be the most talented
singer within a time-honored genre of cabaret performer: the zaftig earth
mother philosophizing about love and its sorrows....Ms. Dexter is impressive
for her restraint and her respect for well-chosen songs." Stephen Holden, New
York Times, Dec. 18, 1997.
"Ultimately, Big, Bad & Blue, Live! is every bit about the cabaret experience and its intimacy. Dexter bonds with her audience on many levels, practically introducing the SRO crowd to one another.. fueled by a brilliant sense of dynamics and emotive sensitivity....Dexter's performance is an emotionally charged, soul-stirring thing to behold." Mike Bieber, JAZZIZ, June 1998.
"Baby Jane Dexter's current gig at 88's, The
Real Thing, will charge you up like an electrifying dose of romance
therapy." Marisa Cohen, TimeOut,
New York, Feb. 12, 1998.
"With a meticulously chosen, eclectic set
of songs -- from some unlikely sources as well as the likes of Strayhorn/Ellington -- Dexter accomplishes what she always
sets out to do: Create an emotional bond with her audience, a la cabaret, but
via musicality rather than imposed anguish....Her songs are as much dramatic
performances as they are pop music...It's tough to figure out which is more
remarkable, Baby Jane Dexter's new show or the fact she isn't signed to a major
label." John Anderson, Newsday, Jan. 1998.
"Everything she does is tackled so
skillfully and with so much heart that my own heart caves in. Her repertoire
consists of songs about falling in love, falling out of love, looking for love,
doing without love, and feeling lousy about it. The themes are universal, the
approach unique." Rex Reed. New York Observer, Jan. 1998.
"Baby Jane Dexter in The Real Thing --
Critics Choice
Best Bets
Three Stars
Patricia O'Haire, N.Y.
Daily News, Jan. 1998.
"If you want to hear songs that haven't
been done to death by everyone else, sung by a powerhouse whose belief in her
material feels unshakeable, savor Baby Jane Dexter. Make your reservations
now." Chip Deffaa, New York Post, Jan. 9,
1998.
"When God took Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ruth Etting, Helen Morgan...he gave us Baby Jane Dexter in return. If you doubt it, go hear what she does, just for one hair-raising instance...with the song that's the pivot of her current pile-driving 'intimate opera,' Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin's great old standard, 'Until The Real Thing Comes Along'." The Villager, Dec. 1997.
"For the best of cabaret without the worst of cabaret, you can't beat a night with Baby Jane...It's tough to tell which is bigger, her voice or her heart." Mitch Broder, Gannett Suburban Newspapers.
"Baby Jane Dexter: When she sings the blues, she not only tells it like it is, but -- where that funky woman-man thing is concerned -- she tells it like it's gonna be." The Village Voice.
"Every so often, given the average cabaret-going luck, a show soars across the footlights to strike you between the eyes and overwhelm your senses. One such blazing pageant of life and love is The Real Thing, Baby Jane Dexter's all-new show." John Hoglund, Bistro Bits, Back Stage, Nov. 28, 1997.
"Dexter seems no less persuasive whether applying all of her formidable, room-rockin' vocal power to lyrics or changing the pace with some subdued, intimate parlando bits. I like the control she has developed over her voice." Chip Deffaa, N.Y. Post, Nov. 28, 1997.
"This force-of-nature blues belter has become one of the most beloved performers in cabaret, and her last show at 88's ran a full 18 months...And now Baby Jane has just opened her new show, The Real Thing, reclaiming her position as Queen of the Clubs." Time Out, New York, Nov. 1997.
"Don't let the humor coursing through her show minimize her seriousness about the music she obviously loves. Don't think the pain she sings about is someone else's, either. This talented woman will be heard. Count on it." Michael Caito of The Providence Phoenix.
"I don't think it's possible to accurately describe Baby Jane's performance in words. You have to see her. You have to experience her." Julie Salamon, N.Y.Times.
"Dexter's idiosyncrasies offer further proof that cabaret isn't just a music museum, exhuming a closed canon of long-dead showtunesmiths. It's a living, breathing art form." Will Friedwald. Stereo Review.
"Baby Jane Dexter is an unconventional artist whose larger-than-life, blues-opera show is utterly irresistible." Nancy Ann Lee. Jazz Times.
"Dexter is still blazing away, pursuing her music path with guts and integrity. With this album ("Big, Bad, and Blue"), she has alot to be proud of." Bill Ervolino. The Record. NJ/NY.
"Dexter is a force of nature herself, a singer who throws herself, body and soul, into her music." Mike Joyce, The Washington Post.
"Wait till you feel Dexter's chilling reading of the Ellington-Strayhorn classic 'Something to Live For,' or Abbey Lincoln's piercing 'Throw It Away.' It's devastating Dexter at her best." John Hoglund. Bistro Bits, Back Stage.
