Ruth Leon recommends…Love is Sweeping the Country – The Mabel Mercer Foundation’s NY Cabaret Convention 2021

Love is Sweeping the Country – The Mabel Mercer Foundation’s NY Cabaret Convention 2021
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This is, in any normal year, the week of the Cabaret Convention, the week when every singer worth his or her sequins heads to Manhattan to the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, to sing out for the glory of the songwriting greats – Gershwin, Hart, Berlin, Kern, Porter, and the rest – and for the delectation of those of us who love their Great American Songbook.

This year there was just one public concert, dedicated to the songs of Irving Berlin, and several online presentations where the singers did their thing in clubs and living rooms all over America, instead of among the glitter of Manhattan’s showcase. This, Love is Sweeping the Country, is one of those online specials, hosted by Natalie Douglas, giving us a chance to hear many of the artists who couldn’t get to New York this year for the Convention.

I have rarely missed a Cabaret Convention over the 32 years of its annual life but I did this year. In mitigation for not being there, here’s some wonderful singing by a number of US cabaret artists, some of whom you may never have encountered before.

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