Sings At the Plaza

Cabaret performer Lisa Kirk frequently does sing (and dance) in the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel in New York, leading a quartet of male singer/dancers dubbed the 4 Saints in an act written for her by her husband, Robert Wells, and his partner, David Saxon, that is, when she's not appearing at a showroom in Las Vegas or Miami or some other venue in the top tier of the nightclub circuit. The album title notwithstanding, that isn't what she's doing on this album; she is re-creating the aural part of her act in a recording studio with laughter and applause obviously overdubbed. It doesn't matter. In contrast to the light pop she was required to sing during her stint with RCA Victor Records in the early '50s, here she is performing material written and shaped for her club persona, a funny, sophisticated lady-about-town. Not surprisingly, Cole Porter (who helped make her a star in Kiss Me, Kate) is tapped for one of Kirk's signature songs, "Why Can't You Behave," as well as "Anything Goes." Wells and Saxon are not satisfied to play such songs straight, instead interpolating their own introductory verses and bridges to comment on the nightclub world and their star. "Anything Goes," in fact, really should be considered a medley of the Porter song and a new Wells/Saxon composition of the same title. And so it goes throughout the "show," as Kirk and her quartet of foils travel the world (and the most expensive department stores in New York) in revised versions of songs such as the suggestive "Good Little Girls" and "Far Away Places." It's all in fun, and it is well realized by a singer who has been doing this for several years. She may not actually be in a nightclub on this recording, but she's been in enough of them to evoke the atmosphere perfectly.