CABARET REVIEW : Clean Sweep for Amanda McBroom

Amanda McBroom is a breath of contemporary fresh air in a musical form that too often is clouded with visions of the past. Her cabaret act at Santa Monica’s At My Place on Thursday night was a vivid blending of old and new, the best from both eras.

Looking poised and confident, her dark contralto voice rich with a colorful tapestry of maturity, McBroom performed with ease and assurance. Her work on standards like “I Wish I Were in Love Again,” “You Send Me” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” demonstrated her breadth and range.

The real meat and potatoes of the program, however, was served up in McBroom’s originals. Best known for “The Rose,” a 1977 song that has already achieved the status of a standard, she devoted a good portion of the originals to material written for an upcoming album.

Typically, the lyrics were beautifully crafted. Humorous songs such as “I Think We’re Not in Kansas Any More” and “This Is Gonna Be One of Those Days” bubbled with witty rhymes and double-entendres. “Drivin’ By,” “There’s a Baby in the Box” and “Wheels”--a group of pieces McBroom identified as her “Metro” songs--were penetrating, and sometimes painful, studies of life in the city.

If there was a problem, it was that McBroom’s melodic vision is not always as unique as her lyric perceptions. In some cases, her superb turns of phrase were enough to compensate for melodic inadequacies. In others, one wished for a surge of melody to match the emotional impact of her words.

But, at her best, McBroom was very good indeed. Surely it’s time to see her for an extended run in a cabaret-style room. Anybody at the Cinegrill or the Vine St. listening?