Julie and Jeff

Sammy Cahn All the Way

The 1959 Broadway Songbook

Because of You - Fifties Gold

I GOT RHYTHM: Mickey & Judy's Hollywood

Two for Tonight with KT Sullivan

Dancing In the Dark -
Vincente Minnelli's Hollywood

Gershwin's Hollywood

The Warner Brothers Songbook

Easy to Love -The Words & Music of Cole Porter

Carried Away - Jeff Harnar Sings Comden & Green

MUSIC REVIEW
Basking in a World Where Anything Goes

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: May 31, 2008

“Is it to rescue or is it to wreck?/Is it an ache in the heart/Or just a pain in the neck?” So wrote Cole Porter about serial infatuation in his 1938 movie song “At Long Last Love.” To hear such delicious turns of phrase delivered with meaningful hesitations and a raised eyebrow by Jeff Harnar, who completes a four-night tribute to Porter at the Metropolitan Room on Saturday, is to find yourself grinning with pleasure.

Known for his meticulously researched and assembled cabaret shows, Mr. Harnar balances the savory wit and boyish yearning of a composer whom he joked had “a whim of iron.” I last saw Mr. Harnar two years ago at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency, where he performed a tribute to Cy Coleman — a rare mismatch between a mild-mannered crooner and a hard-boiled composer whose songs demand a brazen theatricality. Porter and Harnar, however, are a perfect fit.

Mr. Harnar has developed into an accomplished mimic. His imitation of Jimmy Durante singing the comical gender-bending song “A Little Skipper From Heaven Above,” from the 1936 show “Red, Hot, and Blue!,” is dead-on. The show alternates tongue-twisting patter songs and ballads to underscore Porter’s dichotomous personality. Here was an ultimate example of the truism that the worst cynics are also the biggest romantics.

Mr. Harnar, accompanied on Thursday by Alex Rybeck on piano and Mark Minkler on bass, plucked “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” from the prizefighting ring where Frank Sinatra enshrined it and carried it to the dreamy, emotionally vulnerable realm of the besotted suitor. Crooning “In the Still of the Night” and “Ev’rytime We Say Goodbye,” Mr. Harnar projected the tremulous, adolescent ingenuousness of a more innocent era.

Porter’s tongue-in-cheek worldliness whooshed back in a final rush with “Can-Can,” the nonsensical invocation to join a global menagerie that includes apes, pelicans, hippos and rhinos, as well as humans, in a global kick line. In Porter’s language, “If a gangly Anglican can/If in Lesbos, a pure Lesbian can/Baby, you can can-can too.”

Jeff Harnar performs on Saturday at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, Flatiron district; (212) 206-0440, metropolitanroom.com.

Photo: Richard Perry/New York Times

-----------------------

THE TIMES—LONDON


By CLIVE DAVIS
Published: February 28, 2007

I am growing bored with hearing myself say this, but it really is a disgrace that London no longer has a venue dedicated to world-class cabaret.

While Eartha Kitt’s stylish visit to the Shaw Theatre last month proved that the right sort of name can still make a splash in the media, the success of the brief series of residencies mounted by Jeff Harnar and Keith Turnipseed, has, in its quieter way, been even more encouraging.

Kitt’s show, after all, worked its magic with the help of old-fashioned star power. The Jermyn Street season, The American Songbook in London, is a much more intimate affair that relies more on the ultra-intelligent pairing of performer and material. Kitt could not fail to light up a room, even if she chose to sing her lunch menu. Harnar and his colleagues have to make the lyrics speak to their listeners. One false move and the spell is irrevocably broken. Bringing the series to a close with a set of his own, Harnar faced perhaps the most difficult challenge of all. How to find an unhackneyed path through the Cole Porter songbook? Is there any way of finding new depths to standards as sturdy as "Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye?" Harnar, a relaxed baritone, delivered an emphatic answer in an evening that flawlessly married the much-loved patter songs with ballads as unabashed as "True Love."

Punctilious and droll, Harnar’s delivery made an ideal match for the intricate list numbers. "Let’s Do It" made a seductive opener, and he delved into some of the ruder alternative lyrics devised for "You’re the Top."

Harnar’s quest for the unfamiliar also prompted an irresistible Jimmy Durante impersonation in an eccentric snippet from the Broadway hit Red, Hot and Blue.

On "I’ve Got You Under My Skin" Harnar’s supple delivery even took on a feathery, tenor shade.

---------------------------

Read a review of the show in New York's The Edge

---------------------------

"Engaging... revealing Mr. Harnar's skill as a comic singer as well as a balladeer."
- New York Times

"A good mix of stanadards and suprises."
- Variety

"Harnar is nothing less than the singer Cole Porter deserves."
- San Francisco Chronicle

"What a treat it was to hear Jeff Harnar’s magnificent interpretation of "It’s DeLovely." He makes it both a lyric romp and an informal love song; and what a voice!"
- Phillip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner

"Humorous and elegant"
- Aftenposten - Oslo , Norway