 With
his chiseled profile, wavy dark hair, and Austrian accent, Christian
Klikovits may be the dreamboat-iest accompanist working today.
That, though, is not why he deserves recognition. He's the one
who, having met Ellen Greene two years back at the Los Angeles
gym they frequent, convinced her to resume singing. Apparently,
sometime after she last performed in Manhattan (it was a Peter
Allen benefit), she put her sheet music away and said, "Never
again." Lucky that "never again" turns out to
be only a decade, because Greene had a one-night stand at the
Bottom Line a few weeks ago during which she proved she's still
got it in spades. Her late show went on for close to two hours
and was a model, if not of brevity, then of warbling audacity.
It was reminiscent of her Reno Sweeney days and at the same
time entirely different.
When, in the early ' 70s, Greene had patrons lined up on West
13th Street, she was a soigne vision in something chic and with
her hair swept back. She was at savvy odds with everybody attempting
to emulate La
Streisand and La Midler. |
She
sang with a sang-froid that suggested a Vogue cover wasn't far
away. It never came, but three decades later Greene still has
the same eye and ear for songs to show herself off. In a short,
low-cut, tight black dress and loose blonde topknot, she was
a sexy hoyden with a figure to make truck drivers swerve off
the road. Given to exaggerated poses arm akimbo or back bent
into an extreme curve or legs folded under her atop the piano
- she was mannered in a newer, raunchier way. What she did and
how she did it with that flexible mezzo she wielded so well
would not be everybody's cup of dynamite. But no one willing
to take the gambles and gambols she did will soothe those who
prefer artists playing it safe.
Greene was anything but disposed to be demure around the songs
she chose for a show she dubbed "Torch!" Nevertheless,
whether she was reprising Peter Allen songs she kid-gloved back
in the day or singing Klikovits' own "When Love is Gone"
or the Howard Ashman Alan Menken "Somewhere That's Green"
that she popularized or being a kitten on "Someone to Watch
Over Me," she was afraid of nothing, least of all curbing
her trusty instincts.
Welcome back. |
