For those who don’t know him, Aaron Weinstein is the comedian-violinist of the modern age. A throwback to Jack Benny, Mr. Weinstein has a crackly-dry sense of humor (although his tends to lean more towards Woody Allen). To give an idea, he started out the show reading from Nathaniel Hawthorne. A tough joke to sell, and the audience kept pace, laughing with him for the rest of the evening.

Weinstein's violin playing is fun, and a definite reminder of Stephane Grappelli. Add in that the performance sticks mostly to favorites from the American Songbook, and it makes for a toe tapping and highly accessible show. It also doesn’t hurt to have Ted Firth accompanying him on the piano. Firth is one of the premier players out there, and I’m always ecstatic to see him play.

The crazy event of the evening was getting to watch Rex Reed, the famed critic himself, sing a couple of songs. He himself said that he was nervous doing it: “I used to tell performers ‘just suck it up!', but now I’m on stage and Linda Lavin is in the audience and I’m nervous!” But he was very charismatic as he told several tales of his youth. When he was 19, he "couldn’t wait to live in New York where everyone ‘knew things’ and drinks came with umbrellas." He soon discovered that “you could get in free to a B’way show as long as you wrote about it.” On his first gig, he was sitting at the Blue Angel, prepared to watch Harry Belafonte sing, and was nervous because he couldn’t afford anything on the menu: “I was broke, Bart Howard ("Fly Me To the Moon") took pity on me and got me a drink."

Mr. Reed’s singing was light and musical. Coupled with his fame, and backed by extraordinary musicians, everyone was entertained. For his second song he did “Make It Another Old-Fashioned Please” to great effect, and with laughs in all the right places.

Another highlight was when guitarist/singer Matt Munisteri joined Weinstein for the Fats Waller song “How Can You Face Me”. Munisteri has an animated and infectious singing style akin to Jack Johnson. They continued on together to perform a fantastic back and forth violin-guitar jam which brought the house down.

All in all, a really fun time filled with laughs and music. I highly recommend you see Mr. Weinstein if you get the chance. And it just so happens he has upcoming performances at Pangea on June 2, July 7, and August 4 (2016). Guests to be announced. Just use the StageBuddy search to find details as they come:

https://stagebuddy.com/event/aaron-weinstein

To see more on these artists:

Aaron Weinstein:
https://www.aaronweinstein.net

Matt Munisteri:
https://mattmunisteri.com/

Rex Reed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Reed