Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, October 18, 2024
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
Photo: Stephen Mosher
Tanya Moberly, with her clarion voice and the clarity of her every lyric, a command of the stage (and a fine director of other people), took over Don’t Tell Mama for her first evening exclusively devoted to standards from the Great American Songbook. As with most of her shows, she kept the patter to an absolute minimum and offered music to a maximum. In a bit over an hour, she sang 30 numbers—a few in medleys, but most were complete. It says a great deal about her versatility that the program was never weighed down by its size, and she never showed any wear from the energy and physicality required of her. Music director/pianist Ian Herman and bassist Ritt Henn kept pace with her and while provided their own expert musicianship to the charts.
Moberly began with the novelty number “Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long” (Fred Whitehouse/Milton Berle), as sung by Barbra Streisand, which she discovered in her father’s record collection. The songs covered the years 1923 to 1962, from Irving Berlin to Dory Langdon, and from bright comedy to deepest despair. The program showcased her talent, and it revealed the wide range of the Great American Songbook without ever making it feel like a dull course.
Among the highlights of the evening were a beautiful blending of “In the Still of the Night” and “I Concentrate on You” (both Cole Porter) and a moody mini-song cycle of “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)” (Hoagy Carmichael), “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” (David Mann/Bob Hilliard) and “It Never Entered My Mind” (Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart) that showed what an expressive actor Moberly can be. She also showed she could be bouncy with “I Didn’t Know About You” (Duke Ellington/Bob Russell) and jazzy with “Straighten Up and Fly Right” (Nat King Cole/Irving Mills), which delighted the audience with her versatility.What was also fun was some totally obscure material, such as the very witty “Mister Sears and Roebuck” (Ray Gilbert/William Okie & Al Gannay) and the moving “The Morning After” (Harold Arlen/Dory Langdon). Moberly also brought freshness to the often-performed standards such as “Cry Me a River” (Arthur Hamilton) and “Makin’ Whoopie” (Gus Kahn/Walter Donaldson); she presented them as though the audience had never heard them before. To quote a phrase she sang in “Something’s Got to Give” (Johnny Mercer), she was indeed an irresistible force.