Lainie Kazan Runs Out of Room Over the Top

Cabaret singing is serious business. Musicality, dramatic skills and a capacity to work upfront and close with an audience are essential. So, too, is the less obvious but, if anything, more important ability to do it all with subtlety and imagination. After all, the repertoire performed by most cabaret artists has been sung over and over again.

Lainie Kazan, who opened a six-night run at Catalina Bar & Grill Tuesday night, is blessed with an ample array of what it takes to do first-rate cabaret work. Her voice is strong and pliable; she is an accomplished actress; and she knows how to interact with her listeners.

So what was it that was missing in her opening night set? Why was it that so many of her numbers came across as shrill and intrusive rather than intimate and communicative?

The answer to both questions is: an errant sense of proportion and a failure to reach into the heart of her material. Kazan simply went for the most obvious choices in virtually everything she sang. A high percentage of her songs, for example, unfolded in precisely the same fashion: a low-keyed, understated opening building to a big, noisy, overstated climax. Although the approach may have been appropriate for a Vegas showroom, it was far too overblown for the more intimate space at Catalina. And the net result was that whenever Kazan found some sense of intimacy in the music, she quickly discarded it in favor of larger-than-life belting and--even worse--the occasional use of an abrasive, edgy tone, often in the most inappropriate musical passages.

In the process, some fine songs were waylaid, among them, “Here’s to Life” (with composer Artie Butler in the audience), “Over the Rainbow,” “The Man That Got Away,” “Peel Me a Grape” and “I’m Still Here.” And that was a shame, since Kazan, in earlier years, sang with a musical sensitivity and a feel for jazz rhythms reminiscent of the better outings of Morgana King and Cleo Laine. But not on this night.

* Lainie Kazan, with Bob Kaye, piano; Jim DeJulio, bass; and Eddie Caccaudle, drums, at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $16 cover tonight at 8:30 and 10:30; $20 cover Friday, Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m.; $17 cover Friday, Saturday at 10:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m.