Danny Kaye Hit Becomes a Russian Music Survey

by Stephen Holden - New York Times, January 10, 2003

It takes a comic spark plug touched with brilliance to pull off the kind of tour de force that the maniacally exuberant singer, pianist and cutup Mark Nadler has brought (through Jan. 25) to the Firebird Upstairs Supper Club, the opulent new cabaret atop the Firebird restaurant at 365 West 46th Street. In keeping with the club's jewel-box décor and rich Russian cuisine, Mr. Nadler is performing his one-man show, "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)," a zany tutorial in modern Russian music spun off from one of the greatest patter songs ever written.

That song, "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)" became an instant classic when introduced by Danny Kaye in "Lady in the Dark" in 1941. With music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, this torrent of tongue-twisting verbiage drops the names of 49 composers, from Malichevsky, Rubinstein and Arensky to Gretchnaninoff, Kvoschinsky and Rachmaninoff during its mad dash to an imaginary finish line.

Those names, even the most esoteric ones, are not imaginary. As Mr. Nadler's show careers wildly along, he offers tiny musical fragments along with instant analyses (and in some cases personality profiles) of a good number of those 49. In between, he makes fanciful leaps of connection between his research and a dozen first-rate songs by composers, from Rodgers and Hart to Adam Guettel to John Wallowitch. Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," for instance, is connected to "Stranger in Paradise," adapted from a melody by the Russian composer Borodin, whom Mr. Nadler tells us was an extraordinarily nice guy.

In his musical sweep and show-business savvy, Mr. Nadler might be compared to Victor Borge, except that their stage personalities are almost diametrically opposed. Where Mr. Borge, the Danish pianist and comedian, was a sly, suave prankster, Mr. Nadler is a raucous, excitable vaudevillian descended from Al Jolson. Mr. Nadler doesn't tease the emotions. With his ferocious pianism and crowing delivery, he is a traditional show-biz virtuoso of what might be called the hard sell. When he's on, he's "on."

Holy Stravinsky, The Russians Are Back!

by Rex Reed January 20, 2003

Years before the plague called reality TV, Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin wrote the ultimate celebrity challenge—a song entitled "Tchaikovsky (And Other Russians)". Performed by an unknown chorus boy named Danny Kaye, the song made its historic debut in the 1941 Broadway musical, Lady in the Dark. It also made Danny Kaye a star. This tongue twister—which consisted of the names of 49 unpronounceable Russian composers that Mr. Kaye rattled off like artillery fire in a breathtaking 39 seconds—has, for obvious reasons, rarely been performed since.

But musical legerdemain is now being repeated nightly by a nimble Jack-n-the-box named Mark Nadler in a winning new cabaret show called—what else?—Tschaikowsky (And Other Russians) that's heating up a cold January like Dr. Zhivago's samovar.

Appropriately, Mr. Nadler's show has found the perfect showcase. He is inaugurating a brand-new cabaret room in the swell digs above the Firebird restaurant on West 46th Street. With its gilt-edged crown moldings, red walls of moiré silk, paintings of prancing, half-clad scarf dancers from Diaghilev ballets, and a centerpiece chandelier clamped to the ceiling with a chain, "kitsch" may be a better word for the new Firebird Club than "elegant." But it's the ultimate setting for Stravinsky, Rumshinsky, Mussorgsky and dozens of other Russians who pepper Mr. Nadler's act. This is not a run-of-the-mill cabaret act for dopes. Mr. Nadler expects his audience to bring along a bit of knowledge already. "If you can afford this cover charge," he informs the audience, "I probably don't have to tell you who Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is." Let the fireworks begin!

Mr. Nadler may take slightly longer rolling all those names like Sapelnikoff, Dimitrieff, Tscherepnin and Kryjanowsky off his tongue than Danny Kaye did, but he savors every one. Telling little stories about each Russian, separating the truth from the gossip, Mr. Nadler dissects Ira Gershwin's lyrics, analyzing them like cargo passing through an airport-security X-ray, and keeps you in stitches all the way. He also plays a soupçon of each composer's work, "so you all get to know these guys." (Know them? I can't even type them.) All of which leads to segues in which he samples new songs, old evergreens and contemporary styles on which all 49 composers exerted a distinct influence. The result is like Victor Borge meets Hellzapoppin'!, as Mr. Nadler slings sheet music over his head, scattering everything from Rimsky-Korsakov to Lorenz Hart all over the carpet. Threading the song together with personal anecdotes, he compares Tchaikovsky's tribulations in 19th-century Russia with his growing up Jewish in Iowa, which somehow leads to the "Ugly Duckling" from Frank Loesser's Hans Christian Andersen, which also starred Danny Kaye. When he gets to the lyrics about the "little black swans," his fingers are playing passages from Swan Lake. A thought or two about how those mean little ducks ended up in a sauce l'orange leads to Cole Porter's "I Concentrate on You." Here, Mr. Nadler demonstrates a keen grasp of sensitive phrasing and soft, burnished tones seldom heard in his previous work (or, for that matter, in the rest of this act). Mr. Nadler should trust himself more on love songs; he's developing a smoky ballad style that is a neat contrast to his usual mayhem.

But it's his ability to imitate an exploding filing cabinet that makes this goofy, accomplished performer unique. He's a combination of all the Marx Brothers put together, and you never know what he'll do next. A few bars of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet leads to an impromptu discussion of a PBS documentary he just watched about the teenage brain. The corny theme by Borodin that turned into "Stranger in Paradise" in Kismet may seem an obvious choice to illustrate the Russian musical heritage, but after a couple of bars, Mr. Nadler halts abruptly and—resorting to an old trick perfected by the great jazz diva Frances Faye—declares, "I can't do it; I hate that song!" Instead, he investigates the more obscure but similar theme in Ogden Nash and Kurt Weill's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself."

The revelation of the evening is "Manhattan Blue," a navy blue torch song by veteran saloon singer and bon vivant John Wallowitch, which should be required listening for all wannabe cabaret singers looking for material that is hauntingly different.

Dashing around the room, rearranging the furniture, and blowing kisses to friends and celebrities, Mr. Nadler turns Ira Gershwin's "I Can't Get Started" into breakneck-paced chop suey. Nothing to do with the Russians, you say. But the music was by Vladimir Dukelsky, a.k.a. Vernon Duke. It all blends, see? Comparing Shostakovich's fight to escape the repressive Stalinist regime with Mary Rodgers' struggle to overcome the powerful legacy of her father Richard is, admittedly, a big stretch, but it leads into a lovable soft-shoe routine from Ms. Rodgers' Once Upon a Mattress, performed in a sitting position while firmly planted at the piano bench. Part of Mr. Nadler's charm is that what he does is risky, impudent and defies description. I won't even tell you what he does to Sokoloff and Kopyloff, or Gretchaninoff and Rachmaninoff. As Ira Gershwin rhymed, "You've already undergone enoff."

This amazing feat of research and chutzpah may sound like an impossible task bordering dangerously on tedium, but Mark Nadler is a musical Punchinello who pulls more rabbits out of a hat than the teenage Houdini. Talented and fearless, he never runs out of fresh ideas, and he has the wacky style and infectious humor to pull them off. Tackling an entertainment project this cheeky and daunting, I think he may also be a little bit crazy. That's the best part. In an otherwise dreary season of predictable revivals and ho-hum reruns, Mark Nadler an original. Mad joy is his signature, but I like the way he spreads it around.

Tschaikowsky (and other Russians) is a patter song, which was famously performed by Danny Kaye in the Broadway musical 'Lady in the Dark' with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin. In his one-man show, Mark Nadler bursts onto the stage and launches into this song listing 48 Russian composers at high speed. Nadler then deconstructs the whole thing, and takes the audience on an educated journey, picking out a good handful and giving a mini lecture recital on each. We get musical fragments, songs and sketches, including songs from Rogers and Hart, Kurt Weill and a moving, yet funny, rendition of Ugly Ducking (also originally sung by Danny Kaye). At one point he brilliantly accompanies himself tap dancing at the piano - not an easy feat!

Mark is multi-talented, bursting with charisma and energy - so much so that you just cannot take your eyes off him. He has a very commanding stage presence and will remind you of many performers like Liberace, Gene Wilder and Eric Idle. Cabaret doesn't get better than this. Mesmerising, educational and highly entertaining.

Rushing through the Russians on a giddy musical express

It was the song, many say, that made Danny Kaye a star -- Ira Gershwin's tongue-wrenching compilation of Russian composers, with all those forbidding Slavic consonants, sung to an ever-more-rapid tune by Kurt Weill and delivered with astonishing dexterity by Kaye in "Lady in the Dark" in 1941. Mark Nadler goes Kaye one better, opening his solo show "Tschaikowsky (and Other Russians)" by singing and playing that same song at just about Kaye's maximum velocity, his lips popping consonants almost as fast as his fingers fly over the keys.

Then he proceeds to up the ante on Gershwin and Weill as well. Nadler takes their little novelty tune, his title song, and spins it into a 90-minute tour de force musical pastiche and comedy lecture that covers every one of the 48 composers cited in the lyrics and a number of American musical theater all- stars besides. It's fast. It's flip. It's whimsically erudite. ....... Word must have gotten out that this show was something special, considering the sizable audience at the Geary on Sunday. Greeting what was "clearly a very sophisticated group" -- either for choosing a musical evening over the Academy Awards or having learned how to tape them -- he explained the show's central conceit. The key to memorizing all those Russian composers' names is to know who each is and what his music sounds like.

Working on a monumental, sonorous, 10-foot-long Fazioli concert grand -- playing with impressive dexterity, comically grandiose flourishes and even a keyboard-soft shoe duet -- Nadler runs through at least a scrap of the music of every one of the 48 composers from Feodor Akimenko and Nikolay Artciboushcheff to Sergey Vasilenko and Vassily Zolotareff. That includes quite a few more familiar names -- Borodin, Prokofiev, Glinka, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and the like -- most accompanied by cleverly enlightening anecdotes as well.

The quips and musical snatches come quick, Nadler tossing aside one score after another with a decisive "Next!" The segues are humorously varied. Some are logical -- from a teacher to a student, say, as in his brisk demonstration of how to turn Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumble-Bee" into Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." Some are geographical. Some are more free association.

Commenting on Tchaikovsky's notoriously lonely life, Nadler swings into a beautifully sweet and funny rendition of Frank Loesser's "The Ugly Duckling" (another Danny Kaye number), nicely sung, inventively mimed and brightly ornamented with passages from "Swan Lake." No, Loesser wasn't a Russian. But neither, really, was Vladimir Dukelsky, despite his inclusion in the title song. Better known as Vernon Duke, he wrote the music for Gershwin's "I Can't Get Started," which Nadler tears off with impressively comic rapidity.

Nadler adeptly inserts a dozen such songs into the show, just enough to keep his basic concept -- as funny as it is -- from getting tired....... Nadler is a commanding, energetic and inventive stylist. His heartfelt, combative take on Weill and Ogden Nash's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" and his beguilingly wry rendition of Carol Hall's "Only a Broken Heart" are as moving as his seated soft-shoe version of "Very Soft Shoes" (Mary Rodgers and Marshall Barer) is hilarious......................

Nadler is a true original. And this is a sweet, light and brightly inventive show.

By by Robert Hurwitt

While Divas held centre stage for much of the first week of the Festival, the second week allowed two of the Festival's divos to show their class. Andrew Lippa was the major featured composer/performer this year, with two shows devoted to compilations of songs from his various works, along with a performance of his musical John & Jen. In the midst of all this, he still managed to slot in a Masterclass on interpreting musical theatre songs, which was a model both of pedagogy and insights into the relationship between text and music. Not only students but professionals had their eyes opened to the essence of putting a song across, which is never about generalised or fussy emotions, but always about clarity in performance and connecting with the audience.

To go from this witty and instructive lecture-demonstration to Mark Nadler's astonishing one-man show Tchaikowsky (and Other Russians) was to be reminded yet again of the versatility of figures like himself and Lippa. Taking as his starting point the Weill/Gershwin tongue twister which races through 48 Russian composers in not much more than a minute, Nadler gave a small but wildly appreciative audience a musical history lesson, a ridiculously casual yet virtuoso demonstration of the art of piano playing, some knockout interpretations of songs such as Sondheim's Next and Porter's I Concentrate on You, an account of Loesser's The Ugly Duckling which put it in a completely new light, and a soft shoe shuffle and tap dance – all the while seated at the keyboard and keeping up a droll commentary on every one of the composers and their music. This was like Victor Borge, Leonard Bernstein and Tom Lehrer rolled into one and on speed: whatever it is Mr Nadler has running through his veins in performances such as this, and (with singer K.T. Nadler) the equally engaging celebration of the music of Jule Styne, Everything's Coming Up Roses, I'd love a teaspoon of it.

Michael Morley July 8, 2005