Jane Burbank | PRESS
In a season at certain times all too rife with cookie-cutter cabaret, impresario Lee Summers has created a truly other-worldly event with his Just A Piano series in periodic stints at the Triad, which have featured such marvelous entertainers as Melba Moore, Lillias White and LaChanze. His most recent, A Tribute To Queens, is in fact not an homage to the forgotten New York City outer borough as some might assume, but a dynamic evening of song devoted to the world's greatest pop divas, among them Streisand, Midler, Minnelli, Garland, Ella, Aretha, Diana Ross, Dusty Springfield, Carole King and even Sir Elton John.
And the entire fantabulous package is woven together by the phenomenal vocal talents and charisma of one Jane Burbank, whom, while something of an established club star in her own right, is still beginning to reach audiences who are wholeheartedly bowled over by her brilliant talents and handling of a stage, besides the music and lyrics of each chosen number.
Burbank's outrageously-impressive instrument dazzles almost from the get-go on a rendering of "It's Too Late" followed by "I Feel the Earth Move," before "Tiny Dancer" bridges the way to a Streisand coupling of "Why Did I Choose You?" and "The Music That Makes Me Dance." "Reflections (Of the Way Life Used to Be)" is only topped by "When A Man Loves A Woman" and the Billy Preston/Syreeta hit "With You I'm Born Again," in which Burbank is joined by producer Summers, and she hits another home run with the Temptations/Supremes hit "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me."
As if none of this was enough, Burbank follows "Come Rain or Come Shine" with a mash of "A House Is Not A Home" and "One Less Bell to Answer," and by the time she's got the entire room wound around her lovely fingers on a rendition of "Son of A Preacher Man," she's hitting the ball out of the park with a fearless and inimitable "Maybe This Time," before "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," as only she could.
There simply aren't enough superlatives to describe the glory that is Jane Burbank, or Lee Summers's Just A Piano series. One can certainly do no better than to keep one's eyes peeled for the next installment, for it is without a doubt certain to be a treat at the very least and a night in a billion at most. Which this critic can only describe as a severe understatement. In short, both the show and Jane Burbank are a trip to the moon on gossamer wings.
UPDATE: This humble writer was sorely remiss in not mentioning the splendiferous talents of Ms. Burbank's musical director, Daniel A. Weiss. By all accounts the musical backbone behind Just A Piano, and a possessing a full-to-bursting roster of clients for his work as an instrumentalist, he looks forward to his immediate new position of the musical White Noise! which will debut in New Orleans in July and hopefully head to New York City soon after, under the production helm of Whoopi Goldberg and others. Ôªø