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Proving That There's No Business Like
Ethel Merman
June 6, 2001
By Stephen Holden
The New York Times
The humor and ebullience that emanate
from Klea Blackhurst in her cabaret tribute to Ethel Merman
are qualities that can't be faked. And they are among the
reasons Ms. Blackhurst's show, in an open-ended run on Sunday
and Monday evenings at Jack Rose (771 Eighth Avenue, at 47th
Street, Clinton), has generated such enthusiastic word-of-mouth.
There isn't an affected bone in the body
of this Utah-born performer, who fell in love as a child with
Merman's recorded performance as Annie Oakley and jokes about
having been nicknamed ''Ethel Mormon.''
Unlike Rita McKenzie, another Merman
acolyte whose popular 1980's cabaret show, ''Call Me Ethel,''
presented an eerily accurate impersonation of the more mature
Merman, Ms. Blackhurst doesn't try to channel her subject's
trumpeting sound.
Peppering her show with very funny anecdotes
and avoiding Merman's darker side, she does an affectionate
homage, not an imitation.
What she retains of Merman's style is
an echo of the braying nasality that helped this lustiest
of Broadway voices to project a lyric to the farthest reaches
of a theater. Ms. Blackhurst's voice is at once lighter and
sweeter, with a rippling vibrato that she unfurls in her quieter
moments.
With the deft support of a pop-jazz trio
led by Michael Rice on piano, this redheaded singer also brings
out a Merman trait that many overlook: her jovial sense of
swing.
The fresh musical perspective on Merman
that Ms. Blackhurst provides extends to the material. Merman's
signature songs -- ''I've Got Rhythm,'' ''Everything's Coming
Up Roses,'' and ''There's No Business Like Show Business''
-- are here. But so are many other worthy obscurities, including
''Just a Moment Ago,'' a surprisingly delicate Latin-flavored
ballad by Roger Edens; Cole Porter's cheerily upbeat ''I've
Still Got My Health''; and ''World, Take Me Back,'' which
Jerry Herman wrote for Merman to sing
Copyright 2001 The New York Times
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