Live and in Person with Billy Stritch

Jim Caruso's debut album with LML is a live cabaret performance at New York's Arci's Place. Caruso is joined by Grammy Award winner and pianist Billy Stritch, who sings engagingly on a few cuts. He also acts as Caruso's straight man, delivering the lead-ins to the punchlines right on cue. Stritch received a Grammy for the top 1994 country tune. No country here, though, as Caruso fills the program with humorous material. One of the more hilarious pieces is "A Song for My Friends," whom he implores to "get a job" because they're not going to make it in showbiz. Caruso is also different from many singers of cabaret style as he doesn't rely heavily on ballads. Instead, he feels more comfortable with such middle and fast-paced tunes as "Errand Boy for Rhythm" and the tongue-in-cheek "I'm Hip." Even the classic ballad "How Deep Is the Ocean" is given an irreverent romp around the track. There are other ingredients that make this an entertaining, fun album. There's a funny five-minute comedy interlude during which Caruso reveals that on his first gig his mother played ballads. But it was a slow act because she only knew how to play ballads. Second, there's a 12-minute track of Johnny Mercer tunes, a follow-up to "Miss You Mr. Mercer." Here Caruso shows he can do romantic ballads, slow and without any shenanigans. There's good-time entertainment all around on this recommended album, but there is one concern: for some reason LML's engineering often finds the singer working hard to make sure he isn't drowned out by the piano, which gets in the way of the performance.