Still the Star Attraction

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

When Frank Sinatra’s Capitol single of Cy Coleman’s song “Witchcraft” hit the charts in 1957, Mr. Coleman was already so successful as a performer that he was able to acquire, with partners, what in essence was his own nightclub. Situated on West 58th Street, it was called “The Playroom,” and Mr. Coleman served as the semi permanent star attraction. The late 1950s may have been the happiest time of his life.


“I worked hard,” he told me last week. “Even though it only held about 60 people, I had all these celebrities coming in every night. Jackie Gleason would reserve a table of 12, William Holden had a regular seat at the bar. Apart from me I had [pianists] Billy Taylor and Randy Weston, and [vibraphonist] Don Elliott. I never made a dime, because the club was managed so poorly, but I had a great time.”


In all of the conversations I have had with Mr. Coleman, he spends comparatively little time talking about this hit show or that hit song he wrote. Nothing means as much to him, he makes clear, as appearing in front of the public. That’s why, starting tonight, he’ll be playing with his trio at Feinstein’s at the Regency for two weeks.


“The idea is getting out and being able to stretch those muscles,” he told me, “to make sure that the audience is having a good time. Which, in turn, ensures that I’m having a good time.” Apart from a brief appearance at Joe’s Pub a couple of years ago, this is Mr. Coleman’s first real engagement in New York in many a season.


When his career started, Mr. Coleman, who was born Seymour Kaufman in this city 75 years ago, might have expected to have a career path similar to that of Bart Howard or Murray Grand – full-time pianists who occasionally got lucky with a successful song. It actually worked the other way around: Mr. Coleman was a successful nightclub headliner who broke through to the upper brackets with “Witchcraft,” which became one of Sinatra’s all-time signature songs.


“After that was such a hit,” he said, “it was clear to me that I was going to be a full-time songwriter from that point on.” And write he did, composing a string of critically and commercially successful Broadway musicals, among them “Little Me,” “Sweet Charity,” “See Saw,” “I Love My Wife,” “On the Twentieth Century,” “Barnum,” “City of Angels,” “The Will Rogers Follies,” and “The Life.”


His songs include “Witchcraft,” “The Best Is Yet To Come,” “Why Try To Change Me Now?” “Pass Me By,” “Hey Look Me Over,” “I Walk a Little Faster, “Firefly,” “The Rules of the Road,” and “You Fascinate Me So.” They have been sung and recorded by virtually every great jazz and pop singer active in the second half of the 20th century, starting with Frank Sinatra and including Blossom Dearie, Bobby Short, Tony Bennett, and Peggy Lee (the latter two have released entire albums of Mr. Coleman’s music).


Mr. Coleman’s only currently active peers with a comparable record of Broadway productions are Jerry Herman and Stephen Sondheim. As a writer of hit tunes, his record is comparable to that of Marilyn and Alan Bergman or Michel Legrand. Yet Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Herman’s individual songs are not sung as widely as Mr. Coleman’s, and for all their success with singers, the Bergmans have never had a hit Broadway show.


“I don’t set out for that,” Mr. Coleman said. “I just write it the way I know how. You can’t do it any other way, really, you can’t plan to write a hit. I write out of my gut. I can be a custom tailor, in that I know how to work with stars: Sometimes I hear Tony’s or Peggy’s voice in my head, and the Sinatra-Nelson Riddle sound is forever lodged in my psyche. But for the most part it’s just straight out of my gut.”


Mr. Coleman also has succeeded at something else that none of his fellow songwriters attempted. He has had a long and vital career as a performer, an expert jazz pianist, and an occasional vocalist, playing clubs all over the world. And he made a few great records along the way (his most recent album, and quite possibly his best, is “It Started With a Dream,” Sony Classical SK89138; produced by longtime collaborator Mike Berniker, it combines Mr. Coleman’s voice and keyboard with a full orchestra.)


Virtually everyone who’s had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Coleman play or sing agrees he’s one of the best. As a pianist, he has an extraordinary gift for picking the right melody notes. He plays brilliant chords and has impeccable swing. As a vocalist, he may not have the chops of Tony Bennett, but he has more than enough voice and style to put a song over convincingly.


Mr. Coleman started as a classical piano child prodigy. “My older sister would play hooky from school and drag me along,” he recalled. “We’d go see big bands at the Paramount.” These included the Tommy Dorsey-Frank Sinatra combination and Claude Thornhill. Thornhill’s music, Mr. Coleman recalls, was a bit too subtle and refined for an audience of unruly teenage truants. Claude Thornhill got all steamed and said to the crowd, ‘If there’s anybody in here that can do better than I can, you want to come up here?’ My sister prodded me and yelled out, ‘My brother can do better than you!'”


In the nearly 50 years since “Witchcraft,” Mr. Coleman has been able to pick and choose the venues where he’s played. But he has never spent as much time as he would like in front of a crowd with his piano trio, which currently costars bassist Gary Hasse and drummer Buddy Williams. “We played jazz festivals in Orange County and Wales, of all places, and we’re getting back into the groove,” he said. “I think that after all these years, I’m ready for New York again.”


Will he play his own songs exclusively? “No, I like to do standards and songs written by other people at least half the time. I can be a lot more outrageous and take more chances with other people’s songs. I do them my own way. That’s when I real feel like I’m a musician and not a composer.”


Currently Mr. Coleman has two new shows in the hopper. First is a new production of “Sweet Charity,” starring Christina Applegate, which is set to open in April. This won’t just be a revival but a thorough revamp, updating the setting from the Manhattan of the 1960s to the current day. But he’s even more excited about a somewhat experimental-sounding project, commissioned by the Kennedy Center under the auspices of Dr. Billy Taylor. It’s a new Broadway-bound musical – his first collaboration with the Bergmans – about the jazz life. “There’ll be songs about jazz characters, songs about road life, even a song about [jazz’s posthumously notorious cross-dresser] Billy Tipton,” he told me.


“I enjoy it all,” he said. “I’m never bound by doing the same things again.” His music and shows have won dozens of Tonys, Grammys, and Drama Desk awards, but he told me what gives him the most satisfaction: When “I will run into somebody on the street, a guy I haven’t seen in a while, and he’ll ask me, ‘Hey, where are you playing these days?'”


The New York Sun

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