Past, Present Collide at Nicolas King’s Birdland Show

Nicolas King‘Act One’ (Club44 Records)For years, it has been clear that Nicolas King is the heir apparent to Mel Tormé. Beyond that, the compact, high-energy dynamo is the latest in a continuum of hyper-talented individuals of similar stature, among them Mickey Rooney, Buddy Rich, and especially Sammy Davis Jr. Yet Mr. King’s latest album, “Act One,” and his most recent solo show in New York, at Birdland late last week, offer evidence that points to other comparisons.The connection to the late Tormé was both direct and apparent, something that Mr. King embraced and even invited, confident that he’s got the chops and the smarts to withstand the comparison. For the biggest part of his career thus far, he has been mentored and accompanied by the brilliant pianist Mike Renzi, who, in addition to being the musical director of choice for Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, and Tony Bennett, was Tormé’s musical partner for much of the singer’s glory years. Mr. King and Renzi made a point of recreating some of Tormé’s most famous routines — i.e., his baroque take on “Pick Yourself Up,” in which Kern and Bach meet Fred and Ginger — and it seemed like a respectable homage rather than a mediocre imitation. Tormé’s legacy was in capable hands.Yet lately, especially with the death of Mike Renzi (at 80 in 2021), it’s increasingly clear that Mr. King’s artistry is expanding into other areas.For anyone else, the premise of “Act One” would seem at best premature — who does a career retrospective at age 31? It’s a legitimate idea in this case, as Mr. King has been performing professionally for 25 years now. Overall, it’s a look backward rather than inward. “Act One” is essentially a full-on variety show, containing some vintage tween and teen performances, as well as duets with notables like Jane Monheit, Norm Lewis, and Tom Selleck. (Yes, you read that correctly.) “Act One” is mostly flash and excitement, though there are some heart-felt love songs, especially “What Matters Most.”Still, my personal favorite of Mr. King’s recordings remains his 2017 “On Another Note,” an exemplary collection of ballads with the superlative Renzi. The set almost seems like a challenge posed by Renzi, defying the young singer to be able to put his heart and instill genuine feeling into 10 songs and hold the audience’s attention for 40 minutes of slow tempos, with no bass or drums. He passes, as they say, with flying colors.At Birdland, Mr. King supplied plenty of both the high-energy numbers as well as the more intimate ones; like both Tormé and Davis, he is a master of the ballad form. He referenced the two of them in the first 10 minutes, between “Yes I Can” (Sammy’s mantra, composed for him by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams) and “New York State of Mind,” in which Mr. King and veteran accompanist Russ Kassoff recreated a quintessential slice of Mel and Mike. Then, too, the Birdland show was full of amazing moments when the past and present collided, as when he recast Britney Spears’s “Baby, One More Time” — a song that I previously wouldn’t have thought worth anybody’s time — into a Darin-esque, hard-swinging 4/4. He mashed up two Disney waltzes, “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” going from the first in a traditional three to the second in a more modish 6/8. Normally I cringe when a young singer bites off “Mr. Paganini,” trying and usually failing to replicate Ella Fitzgerald’s scat interludes note-for-note. Mr. King retained her signature quote from “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” which she added for her 1952 remake, but otherwise he inserted his own bop interludes. There’s a similar moment in “Change Partners” on the “Another Note” album, wherein Renzi plays a brief hint of the Sinatra-Jobim arrangement, referencing rather than recreating it. He winds up with Tormé’s Benny Goodman-inspired “Love is Just Around the Corner,” with those familiar riffs from “A Smoo-oo-th One” and “Slipped Disc.”Lately, the singer that Nicolas King most reminds me of might be Marilyn Maye, and not just because he can swing you into bad health on one song and then break your heart on the next (as on “Two for the Road” and “Children Will Listen”). Like Ms. Maye, his audience seems to be mostly from the musical theater and cabaret world. Still, don’t make the mistake of assuming he’s just a Broadway notion of what a jazz singer should sound like. Nicolas King is the real deal.

Past, Present Collide at Nicolas King’s Birdland Show

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