If you didn’t know better, you might have guessed it was New Year’s Eve at Petterino’s on Monday night. Champagne flowed, glasses were raised, music filled the room.
But as far as the evening’s performers were concerned, this was bigger than merely another turn of the calendar. For the musicians and a capacity crowd were celebrating the 10th anniversary of “Monday Night Live,” a weekly feast of song.
Ever since opening night in September of 2007, singers have shown up at Petterino’s, put their names on a list and waited — hopefully — for producer and co-host Denise McGowan Tracy to invite some of them up to the stage. From that very first show, pianist and co-host Beckie Menzie has awaited them, accompanying a far-flung roster of vocalists in jazz standards and show tunes, ballads and blues and you-name-it.
“I had this crazy idea,” Tracy recalled, a few minutes before showtime Monday.
Having attended a WTTW-Ch. 11 event in which singer Ann Hampton Callaway interviewed Liza Minnelli, Tracy was struck by Minnelli’s recollections of “how everyone used to go to Liza’s house on Sundays and work out new material.”
Which got Tracy wondering: Why not try something like that in public? Why not invite singers to just show up and sing whatever they’d like?
Tracy had worked for Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises boss Rich Melman, so she took the concept to him. She figured that Petterino’s — a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant — was perfectly located in the Loop theater district to double as an entertainment venue.
“It started with a handshake and six weeks,” said Tracy.
Why did Melman go for it?
“I have a lot of confidence in Denise,” explained Melman, who cheered Monday night’s proceedings from a booth toward the back of the room.
“And I said: If you really feel you could pull it off, let’s give it a shot.”
As for why a six-week run blossomed into a decade, “I think it’s because of Beckie and Denise, they’re quite a force,” added Melman.
“They’ve developed a lot of regulars, which always helps. There’s enough talent, and they seem to like it. It’s Beckie and Denise being out there, talking with the entertainers, getting connected with the people in the room.”
On any given night, the talent might range from brilliant to “did you really want to do that in public?” So it was on this evening, though the high points far outnumbered the strike-outs.
“I want to start with a thank you to Rich Melman,” Tracy told the crowd, pointing in his direction early in the night.
“Please, do not anyone approach him for an idea about a restaurant.”
As savvy a presenter as she is charismatic an emcee, Tracy featured some of Chicago’s best cabaret artists first, her duet with Menzie followed by Menzie and Tom Michael performing Cole Porter’s “Too Darn Hot.” But while singers typically take the tune at quite a clip, Michael and Menzie opened with a slow, sultry, slinky approach. That suited the song’s red-hot sensuality, as did the buoyantly swung passages that followed.
But this was no nonchalant exercise in tempo changes. Menzie and Michael offered a carefully thought-out arrangement, solo lines alternating with dual voices in tight harmony.
The music-making turned a bit highbrow when vocalist Fadeke Oparinde sang “Summertime” from George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess,” enriching it with a jazz-soul undertow. Clearly, Gershwin’s music communicates as urgently in a cabaret setting as it does in the opera house.
Singer Ron Hawking picked up on the Gershwin theme with “I Got Rhythm,” sung with a sense of joy and a shot of Frank Sinatra. Hawking’s rhythms may have been far removed from Gershwin’s, but this music was built for the art of improvisation.
It isn’t often that an 86-year-old singer takes to the stage, notwithstanding the ongoing work of the indefatigable Tony Bennett (who’s 91 and still touring). But Nancy Wood acquitted herself quite handsomely in both spoken word and song.
“I love three things about Petterino’s,” Wood told the audience. “I love the stories that Denise tells. I love the beautiful music of Beckie. But most of all, I love the friendships.”
With that, Wood plunged into Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “Come Rain or Come Shine,” her supple alto showing ample warmth.
Of all the artists who stepped into the spotlight, surely none was more multifaceted than Jeannie Tanner. She had launched the evening with a trumpet fanfare, then later accompanied herself at the keyboard as she sang her tune “Promise Me the Moon.” The plushness of her vocals, ebullience of her pianism and high craft of her songwriting reminded everyone in the room that Tanner simply radiates music.
Some of the singers who followed Tanner probably should have confined their vocals to the morning shower. But Cathy Glickman proved it’s possible to make something personal of Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman’s “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be,” the sheer conviction of Glickman’s reading quite something to behold.
And the great Cynthia Clarey expressed smoldering passion without overstating the case in “Why Can’t I Walk Away?”
In all, quite a 10th anniversary celebration. Here’s hoping for another 10.
“Monday Night Live” starts at 7:30 p.m. Mondays at Petterino’s, 150 N. Dearborn St.; no cover; $19.95 food and beverage minimum; reservations recommended; 312-422-0150 or www.Petterinos.com.
Great Black Music Ensemble
The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) will present the Great Black Music Ensemble with guest guitarist George Freeman at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. The concert kicks off a series of GBME concerts that will continue at 5 p.m. Nov. 5 and Dec. 3; 312-834-3390 or www.aacmchicago.org.
Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @howardreich
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