Crooning

It seems many of our cabaret conversations center around many of the great ladies of our genre. There are always shout outs to Barbara Cook, Mabel Mercer, Marilyn Maye.... the list is predictable. So being a male, it is welcome to stumble across something that has a slant specific to the material that speaks a bit more to me.

I was not aware of Todd Murray until just this week. He is an L.A. native and as handsome as they come with dashing movie-star looks. But what intrigues me more than that - is that he has a lush baritone voice which is a rarity. In these days of screaming Broadway tenors that are belting out high A's & B's to meet the needs of pop standards. He has more in common with classic tones like Robert Goulet or Gordon McCrae.

His current show that he is peddling is a concept called Croon. He goes into detail about the original form of the word; it was a term that came to life with the invention the microphone as a tool for singer amplification. Instead of having to belt over an entire orchestra to fill a concert arena, with the addition of a mic in the 1920's, a singer could ease back and play with all kinds of different qualities to give color to songs. I think I had assumed it came upon us a bit later with the crooners at the tail end of the Big Band movement. Names more expected like Frank Sinatra or Mel Torme. Todd's show goes way back to the vaudeville days and continues into the present day with his own unique cabaret spin on a number of standards. Looking at his tour calendar, it looks like he was close enough to us here in Hastings last November. Here is hoping he makes a return where I will gladly check him out.