Her Eyes Wide Open, Her Feet on the Ground

Jane Scheckter, a singer with both feet on the ground, goes back to the source in her new cabaret act, “Play a Simple Melody: A Tribute to Irving Berlin,” at the Metropolitan Room. For a performer who over four decades has traveled many show-business byways (associations with Bette Midler and Barry Manilow, a stint in an Andrews Sisters-like female trio named Tuxedo Junction), that means both drawing from the well of the quintessential American songwriter of the pre-rock era and asserting herself as a no-frills pop-jazz swinger with her eyes wide open.

With blunt emphatic phrasing, a matter-of-fact attitude and a bright but coarsened voice that doesn’t try to be pretty, Ms. Scheckter is no simpering romantic, although she confessed during Tuesday’s opening-night show to a lingering “delusional” crush on Tony Perkins. Accompanied by a solid pop-jazz trio — Tedd Firth on piano, Tom Hubbard on bass and Peter Grant on drums — she delivered brisk renditions of 20 Berlin standards strung together with mechanical patter that offered few fresh insights. Several interpretations of standards went against the conventional grain. Singing a rhythmically fortified “I Got Lost in His Arms,” a song that Barbara Cook, Stacey Kent and Victoria Clark all treat as a fairy-tale ending of sweet surrender, Ms. Scheckter made it clear that she was not about to let her guard down. Two songs associated with Fred Astaire — “Cheek to Cheek” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz” — instead of gliding on a polished dance floor, remained conspicuously earthbound.

Ms. Scheckter’s resistance to pop sentimentality paid off in her plainspoken renditions of two classic Berlin waltzes, “Remember” and “What’ll I Do?,” in which her absence of vocal sweetness called attention to simple heartfelt lyrics, which speak for themselves. But the show was mostly about swinging along with one of the stronger cabaret trios. Especially when Ms. Scheckter leaned into a witty, happy-go-luck “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket,” the beat was on.
Jane Scheckter performs through Sept. 13 at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, Manhattan
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/arts/music/03scheckter.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss