Cabaret

In a way, cabaret music almost needs to be accompanied by the swish-swish-swish of a 78-rpm disc straining against a metal needle. Partially due to its most famous practitioners being deceased and partially due to the indelible images from Bob Fosse's classic movie seared into our heads, cabaret has taken on a sort of museum-quality feel. But treat yourself to Edith Piaf's haunting "La vie en rose" or Noel Coward's elegantly witty "Mad Dogs and Englishmen," and you'll instantly understand the magnetic attraction this music continues to exert.

Come along as we move to LP-era cabaret in Next Steps.

As the Maurice Chevaliers and Marlene Dietrichs moved into the twilight of their careers, it was up to a new generation, such as Mel Tormé and Blossom Dearie, to fill the gap with songs like "Heart and Soul" and "I Won't Dance." Gone was the earlier sense of decadence, replaced by a suave urbanity, as the Stork Club (somewhat reluctantly) handed off its preeminence to Café Carlyle. Smoldering sensuality and sophisticated style were wrapped into one fantastic package when Peggy Lee cut her definitive version of "Fever." And cabaret continues today, as we'll see in Deep Cuts.

Boggy Depot, Oklahoma, native KT Sullivan blends Mae West's side-of-the-mouth delivery in with her own distinctive stylings on The Wizard of Oz classic "If I Only Had A Brain." Ex-Soft Cell leader Marc Almond (whose new wave band debut, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, gave a hint of things to come) has been exploring his inner Jacques Brel for two decades now, as you can hear in his cover of Brel & Rod McKuen's "If You Go Away." And neo-goth Jill Tracy's "You Leave Me Cold" breathily takes Eartha Kitt off on a Tim Burton-esque detour.

From Berlin's Potsdamer Platz to Manhattan's Upper East Side to Paris' Right Bank, sophisticated chanteuses and urbane vocalists have been enchanting fancy dans and their dames with a little song and a little dance (but rarely seltzer down their pants). Over the years, as cabaret has become increasingly refined from its Toulouse-Lautrec-painted, can-can-dancing-strumpet origins, its reputation has transformed from tawdry to tasteful, and its drink of choice has changed from Absinthe to Appletinis. It's been the subject of numerous stories, and, more famously, a Broadway musical and subsequent movie (which won eight Academy Awards®). From decadent to debonair, we have every hue you could ever want, so come paint the town red with us, because . . . "life is a cabaret, old chum, life is a cabaret!"