Tony Bennett, when asked his so-called “second career” as a painter and visual artist, has said, “It’s funny, I sing two or three nights a week, but I paint six or seven hours every day, yet people always describe me as a singer who occasionally paints instead of the other way around.” Isaac Mizrahi probably actually spends more time in his first career as a designer and fashion entrepreneur (not to mention as a snippy television commentator on the subject) but his more recent role as a singing entertainer is entirely an entity unto itself.
Case in point, I had never heard Mr. Mizrahi’s name before he began appearing at the Carlyle a few years ago, yet I’m perfectly willing to anoint him as one of the most enjoyable singer-entertainers of the current moment. His greatest asset is not his voice—which on its own is nothing special—but his comic timing is terrific, and, even better, his stage personality is even larger than the oversized chiffon gardenia in his lapel.
Better still is his excellent back-up band led by pianist Ben Waltzer, with two trumpeters, Benny Benack III and Bruce Harris (the latter playing a Dizzy Gillespie-style horn with upturned bell), bassist Neal Miner, and percussionists Joe Perri and Joe Strasser.
He opened by essentially deconstructing the iconic Judy Garland-Barbara Streisand medley of “Get Happy” and “Happy Days Are Here Again” into its two individual songs, the first with its distinctive rhythmic patterns (the tom-tom pattern in the bridge, the signature stop-time breaks throughout—although I was surprised by the use of the hard bop anthem “Sidewinder” as a countermelody), the second which he accurately introduced as “a dirge about happiness.”
Some numbers were from songwriters we’re long accustomed to hearing in the Carlyle, though the choices were unexpected: Cy Coleman’s “You Wanna Bet” (the original lyric for the melody that became the title song of Sweet Charity and itself a kind of variation on “I’ve Got Your Number” from Little Me) and Sondheim’s “One More Kiss,” a surprisingly straightforward and unironic waltz written from Follies. He also reprised his lyrical update of “You’re The Top” from 2019, now with even newer items in Cole Porter’s iconic list lyric (ie, rhyming “Miley Cyrus” with “coronavirus”) and steadily rising modulations between chorus (of which there were at least five, I lost count).
He also introduced some more contemporary composers we’re not used to hearing in the Madison Avenue songbook shrine, like Brian Wilson, vis-à-vis an original lyric to the title instrumental of the classic Beach Boys album “Pet Sounds.” Taking Mr. Wilson at his word, Mr. Mizrahi sings of his love for dogs and cats and incorporates bow-wows and meows. Here, as well as Billie Eilish’s “Everything I Wanted” and Alicia Keys’s “Girl on Fire,” Mr. Waltzer’s arrangements perform the unusual trick of making traditional acoustic horns approximate electronic instruments, resulting in some arrestingly unusual sonic textures.
Mr. Mizrahi may not have the sheer vocal chops of his illustrious Carlyle predecessors Steve Tyrell and the late Bobby Short, but like them he succeeds in turning a performance into a private party, with witty, engaging banter that’s at once topical and timeless, political and personal. There’s a lot more that could be said, but to quote Mr. Mizrahi: “Brevity is the soul of wit—and lingerie.”
