Jazz Reviews : Eartha Kitt: The Sexy Sexagenarian

The capacity crowd that attended her opening at the Cinegrill on a rainy Tuesday evening left no doubt that despite all her vicissitudes, Eartha Kitt is still a world-class name.

Age cannot wither her, nor customs fail the infinite variety of this latter-day Cleopatra. As a cabaret-style singer, she remains as instantly recognizable as Billie Holiday was in jazz. As an entertainer, her mixture of hedonistic lyrics and seriocomic sensuality is like nothing else on any stage today.

Along with some unfamiliar material there were several songs out of her old Kitt bag. Bookending this captivating hour were her opener, the witty, waggish “I’m Still Here,” and the warmly emotional poem she wrote for her daughter, “All By Myself.”

As she still informs us, she’s just an old-fashioned girl who wants an old-fashioned house with an old-fashioned millionaire. Her selective taste in men was the subject of an ode to the contrast between “My Champagne Taste and Your Beer Bottle Pocket.”

There must be no dialect, no accent or language she has not mastered, or couldn’t if necessary. Weltschmerz with early-Dietrich Germanic overtones and heavily rolled r’s gave way to cockney-dropped aitches in a song about the wages of sin, then suddenly she was spouting black talk. At one point she also seemed to capture the southern twang of her old nemesis, Lady Bird Johnson. She sang “C’est Si Bon,” of course, and chatted with members of the audience in French, Spanish and German.

Her control of the crowd is unique. If looks could kill, the mortality rate would have been high; yet at other moments she reminded us of her irresistible charm. Like Lena Horne, she has mastered the art of retaining the sex in sexagenarian.

A curious interlude, obviously rehearsed but not a regular part of her act, was the appearance of Reiko, whom the fans of the old “Jack Paar Show” will remember as the wife of TV writer Jack Douglas, often appearing with him as a barely articulate guest. Reiko sang a sort of Japanese quasi-blues and bantered and dueted with Kitt, to mildly amusing effect. But Eartha, as much as any artist on Earth, is self-sufficient.

She was well supported by a quartet under the direction, for opening night only, of pianist Darrell Waters. Andy Howe will play the rest of the run, which goes through Saturday, resumes Tuesday and closes April 29.