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Excerpt from "Two Weeks at the JVC Jazz Festival"
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Town & Country, Excerpt from "Two Weeks at the JVC Jazz Festival" >>
-by Barry Bassis
Who was the sexiest performer at the JVC Jazz Festival?
Granted, it's not a question that usually crops up in my annual reports of these concerts. This year is different because the artist in question is Eartha Kitt, celebrating her 80th birthday. Her famous purr is still intact and she is amazingly agile.
Joking with her talented guests, she hitched up her gown and showed more leg than LaChanze in a duet of "Santa Baby" and held a note longer than Tonya Pinkins, who also contributed a dazzling rendition of "I Ain't Got Nothing But the Blues." Ben Vereen spoke emotionally about her contribution and serenaded her with "My Funny Valentine." The next night, the barefoot diva from Cape Verde, Cesaria Evora, was the polar opposite of Kitt.
Though about 15 years younger, Evora is unglamorous and barely stirs on stage. She apparently does not speak English and so there was no show-biz patter in between numbers; I doubt that there is much of that in her European shows either. What she does is sing magnificently the mostly sad momas as well as some upbeat festival songs of her homeland. There is no apparent artifice or separation between the singer and the song and so she moved me in way that Kitt's mannered vocal style never does. As an encore, she sang the familiar Spanish-language pop song
"Besame Mucho." Evora's band was also delightful on its own, with her saxophonist, Jimmy Crozier, a standout.
****************** 07/05/07
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