Sondheim in the City
Vinyl Release Concerts
May 7-9, 2024 | 54 Below, New York City
After the critical triumph of her Sondheim Sublime album– called “the finest all Sondheim recording ever made” by the Wall Street Journal – Melissa Errico returns to her home at 54 Below and to her favorite songwriter with an entirely new program of Sondheim songs, celebrating her new album (released February 16, 2024 on Concord) and a different side of Steve, praised in The New York Times as “a New York house tour of thrill and heartbreak… from one of Sondheim’s deepest-hearted yet lightest-touch interpreters.”
Sondheim In the City is the Sondheim of smart, sophisticated New York, the Sondheim of the quick, witty, sardonic, love-seeking and sex-driven city that he recorded and worked in through his long life. From the anthem of city busyness “Another Hundred People” to the bittersweet hymns of city marriage, “Sorry, Grateful” and “Good Thing Going, ”with time for hardboiled surprises like “ Uptown, Downtown” and surprisingly soft-centered ballads like “All That I Need” and “Dawn,” Melissa will sound out New York as she rounds out her portrait of Stephen—and, as always in an Errico show, there will be smart talk from this celebrated New York Times columnist to go along with her sublime singing. Come hear why BroadwayWorldsays that Melissa Errico is “a poet, a painter, a walking work of art that lives and breathes to tell stories, and we all the lucky benefactors of her passion.”
Music directed by Tedd Firth, and featuring a quartet of uber- talented musicians, including celebrated jazz trumpeter Bruce Harris.
Reviews
The wonderful thing about Melissa Errico is that her intellect and refinement are so much a part of who she is that she doesn’t have to dress it up – all she has to do is bring it into the room. Also, all she has to do is adorn those qualities with the right colleagues. Tedd Firth. Michel Legrand. Adam Gopnik. Stephen Sondheim. In Sondheim In The City, featuring Mr. Firth’s fine jazz treatments for songs from not-quite-exclusively Manhattan-based musicals, Melissa Errico has captured the feel of the Metropolitan lifestyle that Stephen Sondheim very clearly adored, and wanted to bring to life in his stories. The listener of the music of Melissa’s burg will feel the concrete beneath their feet, envision the lights of the horizon line, and live (for 57 sublime minutes) inside of the most magical reveries of the city… Producer Rob Mathes and Concord Theatricals have a triumph on their hands with Sondheim In The City, an album that should make Sondheim lovers out of Errico fans, and Errico devotees out of Sondheim aficionados. It is definitely an album to put on your “must have” list. On this 57-minute recording, Errico et al do themselves proud, they do Mr. Sondheim honor, and they do The City just right. But let’s be honest, here: Melissa Errico always does it just right.
—Erin Samms, Broadway World
Errico’s warmth and maturity are pervasive. Her lyric interpretation of the lyrics comes from experience. Songs that have quite often arrived upset are here tempered with perspective. Expectations are fewer, appreciation greater. Errico doesn’t sound insensitive; she sounds fortified. There’s even a touch of sophisticated ennui. “Dawn” (from the unproduced film, Singing Out Loud) arrives on effortless long notes with vibrato tails. Bruce Harris’ evocative, muted trumpet adds a patina of noir. A medley of “Opening Doors” (Merrily We Roll Along) and “What More Do I Need?” (Saturday Night) resonates with recollection. It opens with Firth’s tender piano, then swings as if to say “that was then, this is now.” Her stop/start phrasing almost giggles. “Take Me to the World” (Evening Primrose) wafts in on Matt Munisteri’s deft guitar and Lewis Nash’s supple percussion. Firth’s piano adds dappled shadows. “Can That Boy Foxtrot!” (cut from Follies) is here, for possibly the first time, a foxtrot! Instead of unbridled heat, we hear the admiration expressed by a woman who’s been around the block. Imagine Vera Simpson in Pal Joey singing it about Joey. (Errico could play that role.) “Anyone Can Whistle” (Anyone Can Whistle) is as unfussy and limpid as its aspiration. “Good Thing Going” (Merrily We Roll Along) is a slow stroll. Her phrasing makes it seem as though she’s conjuring up specific moments. She’s melancholy, earnest, resigned. “Uptown, Downtown” (cut from Follies) is sophisticated, almost churlish. The brass punctuates. Errico could be performing as one of Truman Capote’s Swans. “It Wasn’t Meant to Happen” (cut from Follies) features the same urbanity. Octave changes feel like pricking thorns. The song is rueful. “Being Alive” (Company) does not, as is common, painfully swell to the rafters. It’s a recognition of a life with perhaps a touch of advice. Melissa Errico knows who she is now, and it shows.
—Alix Cohen, Cabaret Scenes