There are few places better suited to celebrating John Kander and Fred Ebb than Dizzy’s Jazz Club. On Sunday, October 4, New York was misty beyond those magnificent windows, the room was filled with Kander and Ebb melodies, and, making the evening even more special, John Kander himself was sitting at the table directly behind me listening to his music come alive.

John Kander

Hosted and curated by Deborah Grace Winer, Songbook Sundays: Life Is Kander and Ebb brought together three very different vocalists—Karen Ziemba, Matthew Scott and Vanisha Gould—with music director and pianist Jon Weber, Mark McLean on drums, Jay Leonhart on bass and Sam Chess on trombone. The talent was unquestionable, the musicianship superb and the surroundings quintessentially New York.

Karen Ziemba

Yet I left wanting more as I know this songbook inside and out.

Vanisha Gould, Karen Ziemba, Matthew Scott Vanisha Gould

Not more talent. There was plenty of that. What I wanted was more Kander and Ebb.

Karen Ziemba opened with “Where You Are,” immediately reminding us why she has had such a remarkable career. Ziemba doesn’t merely sing a lyric; she understands what is underneath it. That quality served her particularly well throughout the show, whether she was having wicked fun with “Don’t Tell Mama,” finding the aching simplicity of “My Coloring Book,” or delivering “How Lucky Can You Get.” Kander and Ebb frequently wrote characters who perform one emotion while another one is quietly breaking through, and Ziemba knows exactly how to live in that contradiction.

Matthew Scott has a terrific voice coupled with genuine acting chops, something especially evident in “Not Every Day of the Week” and “Love and Love Alone.” When he arrived at “Theme from New York, New York,” he wisely didn’t try to compete with the ghosts surrounding one of the most recognizable songs ever written about this city. Instead, he found his own way into it, allowing us to hear the song rather than an imitation of the singers who made it famous.

Then there was Vanisha Gould, who possesses a fabulous smoky, growling voice that sounds as though it was made for the 1930s. There is something wonderfully lived-in about her sound, a little dangerous around the edges, and it gave “Funny Honey” and “All That Jazz” an entirely different texture. “Maybe This Time” allowed her to move beyond the sass and into the vulnerability underneath, where Kander and Ebb so often do their best work.

The musicians were every bit as important to the performance.

Weber knows how to support a singer without disappearing beneath one, and McLean, Leonhart and Chess gave the music the swing and bite it requires. “Sing Happy” put the band front and center, while

Leonhart—whose career has included playing for an extraordinary roster of great performers—stepped into the spotlight to deliver his own “Razzle Dazzle.” It was an irresistible reminder that sometimes the musicians have a few tricks of their own.

Ziemba and Scott joined forces for “But the World Goes ‘Round,” another quintessential Kander and Ebb song about continuing when life has other plans. “Cabaret,” naturally, also made its appearance, bringing us back to the musical that remains inseparable from the Kander and Ebb name.

Which brings me to the one thing that bothered me about an otherwise beautifully performed performance.

Jon Webber and John Kander

Perhaps having John Kander sitting directly behind me made me even more aware of the sheer size of the catalogue being celebrated. Here was one of the architects of American musical theatre, listening to songs from a collaboration that stretched across decades, and I kept thinking about everything we weren’t hearing.

Vanisha Gould, Karen Ziemba, Matthew Scott

There were three selections from Chicago and three from Cabaret, along with two each from Flora the Red Menace and New York, New York. They are terrific songs, certainly, and nobody is going to object to hearing them sung this well. But Kander and Ebb wrote so much more.

John Kander, Matthew Scott

Where was The Happy Time, Zorba, 70, Girls, 70, The Act, Woman of the Year, The Rink, Steel Pier, Curtains, or The Scottsboro Boys? There is an astonishing amount of material in that catalogue, including songs that deserve to be rediscovered rather than allowed to sit quietly in the shadow of “All That Jazz” and “Cabaret.”

That is particularly what I look for from something called Songbook Sundays. A songbook series has the opportunity not merely to celebrate the songs everybody already knows, but to open the book a little wider. Give us something we have forgotten or haven’t heard in years. Give a younger audience a song they didn’t know existed. Let us hear the journey of the writers, not simply their greatest hits.

Kander and Ebb were never just Chicago and Cabaret. Their partnership was far richer and stranger than that. They could be cynical and sentimental, sophisticated and vulgar, politically savage and heartbreakingly romantic. Again and again they wrote about people performing confidence while quietly falling apart underneath it. Their characters keep dancing, keep singing, keep putting on the makeup and facing the world because, as one of their greatest songs reminds us, the world goes ’round.

Maybe that’s why I wanted more.

What Winer gave us was beautifully sung and beautifully played. Ziemba remains a masterful interpreter, Scott impressed with both voice and dramatic instinct, and Gould made me want to hear much more from that wonderfully smoky voice. Weber and his musicians gave us sophistication, warmth and swing.

Outside those windows was a mist-covered New York, while inside sat John Kander himself listening to his songs. Really, how much more New York can you get? Except, of course, for a few more Kander and Ebb songs.

I enjoyed Life Is Kander and Ebb immensely. My complaint is actually a compliment: with a songbook this extraordinary, I didn’t want the afternoon to end with so many pages still unopened.

G.H. Harding

KIMMEL IN BROOKLYN — After a wildly, odd interview with Howard Stern this week, where he put down both ABC and Disney, he looked terribly fatigued.

I’ve been a fierce advocate for Stern for years, but I did detect just a touch of wanting to take-a-step-back.

He conquered radio and now I expect him to do the same with HBO/MAX.

Interesting for sure.

Ray Caviano

CAVIANO PASSES — You might not recognize the name Ray Caviano, but he passed this week. Ray had the distinction of being one of the youngest-ever record company presidents in the music business and really unparalleled success back in the 80s. He was the one constant voice behind the disco-explosion back then. The Village People; Br. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band; Voyage; and Peter Brown … all his.

Ray negotiated this success into a tremendous deal with Warner Brothers commanding a staggering $6 million dollars a year and his own label and staff. His PR-team at the time, which included veteran-PR-meister Howard Bloom, termed him the six-million-dollar man, and it was a great rags-to-riches story. From Madeline Kahn, to George Benson, the B52s, Grace Jones, The Doobie Brothers, Prince to Chaka Kahn, Rod Stewart and Ashford and Simpson, Caviano just scored a staggering degree of success.

From what I remember, all the other-labels modeled what they did after Ray and his christened label, RFC Records; which introduced Venus Dodson; Gino Soccio; The Mighty Pope; and Change, which featured Luther Vandross. He hit the top, no question, but then personal problems got in the way and he was essentially blacklisted.

 I never met him, but constantly hear some of his successes and they were indeed cataclysmic as his music lives today. RIP.

SHORT TAKES — Edna Gudnersen, from USA Today fame, wrote a terrific article for AARP on who should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. No big surprises, but once again she’s hit the nail right on the head. One interesting post simply said: the voters can change it. Take a read: https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/music/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-snubs/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUrIH1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBWJyaWQRMU9mVTJENHlUU21yQm8wbHdzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeCMUfSZdob2E0b7OqMN0tqZbMXfnFz1ib0PrxztT-BeCdBi54rZKmIAL-s50_aem_-r3LegoVNsCszZW3QsX1hQ …

Slow Horses

Wednesday night meant a new Slow Horses and Ted Lasso on Apple+. Surprise. Both shows have been staggeringly lackluster this season so far. U.K.’s The Guardian even termed Horses whiny! The fellow who created Horses, Will Smith, left and it’s become still good, but terribly ordinary and a lot less of Gary Oldman. Sad …

This week the long-expected merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers took place and guess who was installed as boss? The CEO of Mattel. People in Hollywood are sending are their resumes right now …

Ringo Starr

Still more buzz on that Far Out/Todd Rundgren interview. In a further missive, after dissing Taylor Swift, Rundgren now claims that Ringo best-survived The Beatles. Fascinating. Take a read: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/todd-rundgren-ringo-starr-only-one-survived-beatles/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUqT4hleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBWJyaWQRMWlGYWlyRW14Z24wNHIwUEJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeH9wqOi0plYRGr801XxzuKtasXnT8D_3b9Dfn_FPCaUOrH88qlWOw_CkfdCA_aem_Hap2wxG63VvIwa5wC0KzGw … And, Chuck Darrow had a great piece on Micky Dolenz for his weekend show at The Borgata in AC. Take a read: https://shorelocalnews.com/when-being-an-architect-was-micky-dolenzs-career-blueprint/

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Anthony Pomes; Fred Goodman; Allen Klein; Paul Bartels; JIm Yukich; Tracy Lords; Bryce Grakal; Ken Sharp; Chuck Darrow; Melissa Davis; Magda Katz; Cori Gardner; Donnie Kehr; Bill McCuddy; Deb Caponetta; Jeff Vogel; Steve Leeds; Ed Steinberg; John Sykes; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; and SADIE!

Images on this page have been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

The vista that opens “A Long Winter” is sublime, deep, and rugged as Mikey walks toward the top of the mountain, carrying a weight in his gaze that we can somehow see from far away. The enormity of the environment and the heaviness that hangs in the air are evident and almost overpowering. We feel his isolation, but maybe we don’t understand his connection to the terrain that surrounds him. It might be a big city boy projection, but soon after, the family sits down for one of the quietest dinners imaginable. It’s a tight, wounded moment that registers layers upon layers of what this family is coping with. But there is something there that stays hidden for a long while after.

Fred Hechinger and Ebon Moss-Bachrach in Andrew Haigh’s “A Long Winter“.

As the two brothers engage before turning out the light in their bedroom, the younger brother Tommy, portrayed beautifully and almost unrecognizably by Kit Connor of “Heartstopper” fame, asks the recently returned, older brother, “What did you miss?” And here is where my mistaken projection steps in. Mikey, we are somewhat surprised to hear, is glad to be back home after exploring the world and getting a glimpse of what it has to offer him. Still, there is something in his eyes that suggests a need he cannot quite grasp. And it is in that heaviness that Andrew Haigh’s moody 1950s drama settles into that vast sky. There is a deep uncertainty inside Mikey, and with extraordinary patience, we begin to get a glimpse of what exists inside this young man, back home on a remote Colorado mountain where love, loneliness, grief and desire exist in the same small space.

Adapted by Haigh and Colm Tóibín from Tóibín’s 2006 short story, “A Long Winter” follows Mikey as his world alters unexpectedly after his mother Louise is lost to the first brutal blizzard of the season. Caitríona Balfe gives Louise an extraordinary presence, even as an absent figure whose disappearance becomes the centre of everything that follows. We see a woman who has quietly indulged in her secrets, a woman whose husband knows her deeply while also understanding the loneliness and despair surrounding the life she has been living. There is intense love in this family, but there is also the ache of a life that has not unfolded in the way Louise wanted. Mikey and his brother share this ache, although the ways they carry it are not immediately apparent. But before the snow arrives, dancing and alcohol briefly fill the house with the feeling that everything might be all right. “Things are moving in the world,” we are told, and for a moment the music makes that mountain-top existence feel almost cosy and content. Then the spirits are poured away as winter approaches, and Louise is left looking out the window at that same view but with a much more complicated understanding of what waits ahead.

Caitríona Balfe and Ebon Moss-Bachrach in Andrew Haigh’s “A Long Winter“.

After Louise disappears, Lester and Mikey are left on that mountaintop under the weight of tremendous guilt and anger. They must deal with the quiet, destructive pang of grief and the practical demands of survival. Ebon Moss-Bachrach delivers a tense and beautifully controlled performance as Lester, a man whose emotions are rarely expressed directly but seem to exist in every movement and pause. The relationship between Lester and Mikey is one of the film’s great strengths, particularly in the way father and son speak to one another. Their conversations feel deeply lived in, revealing affection, frustration, dependence, hostility, and a bond that neither quite knows its name. Fred Hechinger delivers a quietly extraordinary lead performance, bringing a fragile sensitivity to Mikey. The film allows us to watch a young man begin to understand himself while the world around him is being buried under snow, silence, and his own set of secrets. Yet there is a strength in Mikey, and an endurance that can climb cliffs and traverse snow-filled valleys. He wants to be there on that remote mountain, protected from the larger world, yet his fantasies and sexual impulses are never far away. His attraction to men quietly becomes part of the story, particularly in his fascination with the young policeman played handsomely by Anthony Timpano. And even though we may expect that dimension of Mikey’s story to become more prominent, it doesn’t overwhelm the film’s larger examination of loneliness, grief, and a family trying to understand what has happened to them.

Connor is wonderfully grounded as Tommy, the younger brother preparing to leave the mountain and discover the world that Mikey has already experienced. Connor gives Tommy a youthful energy that sits naturally within the family dynamic, and his presence helps sharpen Mikey’s own complicated relationship with the outside world. D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai is exceptional as the young helper Lester brings in from town to take on some of the chores usually handled by Louise. There is something quietly affecting in the way this new presence enters the boys’ bedroom and begins to occupy a space that had belonged to Mikey’s brother, creating a different connection for them both at a time when Mikey’s world has become increasingly isolated. Martin Freeman also appears as Louise’s brother, bringing a wonderfully nuanced layer to the family and to the complicated history surrounding her disappearance.

Fred Hechinger in Andrew Haigh’s “A Long Winter“.

The arrival of winter gives Haigh an extraordinary physical language for everything happening inside this family. When the snow comes, it really comes, blanketing the mountain in a crisp white glow that is breathtaking and deadly when it is not respected. Set in the Colorado Rockies but filmed in Alberta, Canada, André Turpin’s cinematography, shot on 35mm film, captures the depth and rugged beauty of the landscape while maintaining the sense that these characters are surrounded by something far beyond their control. The town, with its closed storefronts and cinema, carries a different kind of loneliness, with its ruddy light providing a small human warmth against the cold outside. Inside the cabin, Emmanuel Fréchette’s production design, shaped with art direction from Amanda Nicholson, creates an authenticity that makes every bedroom, table, and corner feel inhabited, while Carol Case’s costumes quietly root these people in the period and their circumstances. Paul Haslinger’s score works within the same restrained physical world, allowing the music to support the landscape and the silences rather than overwhelm them. The loneliness and discontent seem to hang in the air, particularly when the family gathers together, and there is so much they cannot say.

Haigh’s greatest strength here may be his restraint. There isn’t the immediate, devastating emotional wallop of Haigh’s previous film, “All of Us Strangers“. “A Long Winter” works as a slow-burn meditation on loss, family friction, and self-discovery. He allows long pauses, environmental sounds, and small gestures to carry scenes that could easily have been pushed toward larger dramatic explosions. The film sits quietly with grief while also exploring Mikey’s emerging sexuality, his fantasies, and his understanding of what he wants from the world beyond the mountain. Each of these things becomes part of the same uncertain awakening, as Mikey tries to understand himself while the world around him becomes increasingly difficult to navigate. Desire never feels like an isolated plot device. It exists alongside everything else, alongside the family’s secrets, the mother’s disappearance, the father’s grief, and the uncertainty of what adulthood will bring. “A Long Winter” occasionally teeters on the edge of being too emotionally distant or slow, holding the audience at arm’s length, yet Haigh manages to hold onto our hearts carefully enough that the distance becomes part of the experience. We are asked to sit with these people, to listen to their silences, and to watch the landscape close in around them.

What makes the film so affecting is the way Mikey’s journey remains tied to that enormous mountain world. He is a young man who has seen something beyond the horizon and still finds himself drawn back to the place he calls home. He wants the security and safety of the mountain while trying to understand desires that cannot remain buried in the snow forever. Lester is trying to survive the disappearance of the woman he loved as Louise’s absence fills every room even when nobody speaks her name. The snow keeps falling, the world outside keeps revolving, and Mikey is left standing somewhere between the life he knows and the life he is beginning to imagine. Haigh gives that emotional uncertainty room to breathe, and by the time the winter has finally begun to thaw around the family, the mountain no longer feels like simply a setting. It has become the place where Mikey must finally look at himself and begin to understand the person waiting beneath all that silence.