Anthony Santelmo Jr. has a welcoming presence that can make you feel at times that he is singing especially to and for you. He's a big guy with a big voice, a big personality, and, it seems, a big heart—and his talent is certainly abundant.
The title of his new show is "Sleuthy Returns!!!"—Sleuthy being his musical-detective alter ego, an ingenious fellow who tracks down elusive songs with the intrepidness of a melody-obsessed Hercule Poirot. Since he shares his findings with his audiences, this makes for an especially diverse and intriguing song list. It's good fun to hear Santelmo tell how he located and resurrected a particular song title, in part because he is an amusing raconteur and in part because he takes such pride and pleasure in digging up these lost gems.
His default voice seems to be a prodigious, wide-ranging tenor. It's a very "trained" sound. This could prove problematic for a miked singer in an intimate cabaret venue, but Santelmo somehow negotiates his way. Yes, he can bring out the full candlepower of his instrument—as he does, for example, in his pairing of "Why Do People Fall in Love" (Frank Wildhorn, Jack Murphy) and "The Heart Is Slow to Learn" (Wildhorn, Don Black, Christopher Hampton). And in the closing phrases of Ford Winter's "The Moon Is for Lovers," he cuts loose with a startling Puccini-esque thunderbolt. But he can also modulate vocally in order to sound appropriate on a pleasant country-swing trifle like Winter's "You Can't Saw Sawdust." This ability to switch musical gears gracefully is a fairly rare gift. We've all probably winced a time or two on hearing bombastic opera stars over-sing a pop number. But Santelmo brings a slightly different aspect of his vocal talent to nearly every selection.
He tells us that the 1920s is his favorite musical decade, and the era is nicely represented in this show. Early on in the set he performs a charming "Breezin' Along with the Breeze" (Richard A. Whiting, Haven Gillespie, Seymour Simons). Later comes an elegant turn on another Whiting title, "Japanese Sandman" (lyrics by Raymond B. Egan), paired with a later-written number, "Slumber Song" (Whiting, Oscar Hammerstein II).
My favorite selection of the evening was a splendid pairing of Dietz & Schwartz's "I See Your Face Before Me" and Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse's "Two for the Road." Lyrically, the two numbers work unexpectedly well together. And Santelmo is especially connected emotionally during the mini-medley; he leaves the impression that he is living and feeling each passionate syllable. Describing the joining of these two songs, Santelmo noted on opening night: "The Glee children would call it a 'mash-up.' I like to call it a 'clever couplet.'" This kind of playful and mildly campy wit adds to the show's fun, even in moments when it turns just a bit blue.
Santelmo has a good comic foil in his musical director and pianist Barry Levitt. Their bright banter seems to be totally off the cuff. Humor also emerges musically in the performance of "Pastafalooza" (Frank Sabini, Eddie Clark, Gus Van, Joe Schenck), in which every cliché of Italianate pop music is conjured up and then comically amplified, resulting in a robust tour de force.
Levitt and his fellow musicians, violinist Rob Thomas and bassist Jon Burr, provide top-notch support, as do the singer's "Up-Front Girls"—backup singers Rebecca Weiner and Sharone Sayegh. The duo add an antique-sounding sheen to "Breezin' Along with the Breeze" (which has a lilting counter melody crafted by Levitt). But their talents are used extensively—and effectively—throughout the evening.
If I have any quibble at all with this show it's that there are a few too many ultra-romantic ballads grouped toward the end of the set. Coincidentally, during these last few selections on opening night, Santelmo experienced difficulty in remembering lyrics and had to refer to them from one of the Up-Front Girls' music stands. Nobody present really seemed bothered that he did this, but he repeatedly apologized for it. Had he simply announced—once—ahead of time that he was going to have the printed lyrics at hand for the songs that followed, he might have spared himself a few moments of public anxiety.
"Sleuthy Returns!!!"
Don't Tell Mama – November 20, 22, December 27, 28
