Album Notes

A surprisingly powerful instrument makes for a CD that you’ll savor again and again.

Following the sold-out self-titled debut CD from 2000, this new disc (released in celebration of Helen’s NINETIETH birthday), moves easily from classics sung with conviction (\"My Melancholy Baby\", \"The Twelfth of Never\"), to tender moments (\"Autumn Leaves\"), to playful memories (\"Smiles\", \"It All Depends on You\", \"Take Me Out to the Ballgame\"), to powerful statements of love (\"In the Still of the Night\", \"Russian Lullaby\"). Helen Marcovicci has stopped the show with standing ovations at every major venue where she has appeared including the ultimate stage, Carnegie Hall. Her sultry register ignites in a fiery passion whenever she performs. This latest CD, recently recorded at the age of eighty-nine, displays the singer’s warm honest emotion on these beloved songs.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
October 22, 2004
CABARET REVIEW; Giving Mama A Spotlight And Singing With Her
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
We all know about that larger-than-life creature known as the stage mother. In popular mythology, she is the ogre responsible for warping her children\'s lives by pushing them too hard into a spotlight she secretly craves for herself.
How real is this bogeywoman? Candidates were prolific on Tuesday evening at Town Hall where the 15th annual Cabaret Convention celebrated family night. As six musical clans appeared in various multigenerational combinations, you felt that a genetic predisposition to perform mattered more than any pushy mother in determining a child\'s future in show business.
The Callaway Sisters (Ann Hampton and Liz) appeared with their mother Shirley (a voice teacher and former member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus) to sing three-part harmonies in a cheery set that might have belonged on the old \'\'Carol Burnett Show.\'\' In Shirley Callaway\'s voice there were distinct traces of the honeyed timbre inherited by Ann.
ANDREA MARCOVICCI, THE EMBODIMENT OF CABARET GLAMOUR, INTRODUCED HER MOTHER, HELEN, AN ELEGANT 1940\'S NIGHTCLUB STAR, NOW IN HER 80\'S, WHO STILL WIELDS A FORMIDABLE CHARISMA. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER EACH FAVOR TORCH SONGS FRAUGHT WITH ROMANTIC ANGST. AND THE EVENING\'S HIGH POINT WAS HELEN\'S SOLEMN, TRAGIC RENDITION OF \'\'TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS.\'\'



ABOUT HELEN MARCOVICCI:

Helen Marcovicci, as Helen Stuart, appeared at multiple New York nightclubs throughout the war years including The Glass Hat, Bill Bertolotti’s, La Vie Parisienne and The Maisonette at the St. Regis. Although invited to a screen test by Paramount Ms. Marcovicci instead opted for marriage and family and continued to sing for community variety shows until, upon the insistence of filmmaker Henry Jaglom, she joined her daughter, Andrea Marcovicci, in concert. For her eightieth birthday Andrea took her mother on tour and the two played to sold-out houses from Boston to Palm Desert and from Connecticut to Costa Mesa. In addition, she has graced the stage of Carnegie Hall and Town Hall and helped to raise funds for Meals on Wheels among other causes. For over ten years she has appeared Thursday nights as a special guest star during Andrea’s performances at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel. Helen Marcovicci can be heard on her daughter’s CDs “Just Kern” and “Always Irving Berlin” as well as her own self-titled disc, and her latest release, “seems like old times…”