Jazz and Pop Reviews : Wit Accents Haran’s Cabaret Singing Gift

Mary Cleere Haran is to cabaret singing what Wolfgang Puck is to pizza. Put her in a place like the Rose Garden room--as she was for a special appearance Thursday--and Haran will bake up a collection of the tastiest music in the catalogue of great American songs.

Justifiably acknowledged for her hip, off-the-wall, between-tunes humor in New York, where she has become a major cabaret star, Haran is unquestionably one of the wittiest performers ever to interrupt a punch line with a song. But she also deserves more recognition for the quality of her singing.

The program she chose for the Rose Garden was centered around a set of pieces by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, a few lightweight, a few more substantial, and mostly from the Hope- Crosby “Road” movies. Haran tried hard with “Personality” and “Swinging on a Star” and managed to bring some, if not quite enough, interpretive life to these campy items.

She was far better with “But Beautiful” and “Polka Dots and Moon Beams.” Clearly influenced, but not overwhelmed, by jazz rhythms in her phrasing, Haran sang with a warm, throaty timbre that was particularly attractive in the quieter ballads.

The evening’s only false notes were struck by Tom Garvin’s piano and Tom Warrington’s bass. Perhaps because the piano’s scattered sound never got into sync with Warrington’s shakily tuned bass, perhaps because both players were new to Haran’s singing, their accompaniment was well below their usual first-rate level of performance.