Karen Mason
‘Karen Mason and All That Jazz!’
King Kozmo Music | Zevely Records

When musical theater cognoscenti — a fancy way of saying Broadway nerds — talk about the shows of John Kander and Fred Ebb, it’s the opening numbers that first come to mind. If “Wilkommen” from “Cabaret” isn’t the greatest opener of all time, then surely it must be “All That Jazz” from “Chicago,” or perhaps my personal favorite, “Life Is” from “Zorba.” 

When Karen Mason launched her album, “Karen Mason and All That Jazz!,” at 54 Below last week, she took it a step further: With her pianist and longtime musical director, Christopher Denny, she illustrated how the team could distill the essence of an entire story down to a single vamp of just a few brief measures. Ms. Mason and Mr. Denny demonstrated with those three songs above, and then followed these with an even-more-famous introductory vamp, the theme from “New York, New York.” 

It seems perfectly appropriate that Ms. Mason’s relationship with Mr. Kander (who is 97) and Ebb (1928-2004) should begin with the 1991 “And The World Goes ‘Round.” This was a long-running revue that sampled the best numbers from their first dozen or so shows — nearly all of which had enjoyed successful runs on Broadway — as well several of their key independent songs.  

“Karen Mason and All That Jazz!” covers an even wider range of time and many more shows. She goes back to 1962 for “My Coloring Book,” followed by “Maybe Next Time”; both were written essentially for Sandy Stewart and Kaye Ballard when they were regulars on “The Perry Como Kraft Music Hall.” Then Ms. Mason proceeds to 1965, for Kander & Ebb’s first Broadway production together, “Flora The Red Menace” (1965), which gave us the lovely “A Quiet Thing.” Eventually, Ms. Mason brings the chronology all the way up to “Go Back Home,” from the 2010 “Scottsboro Boys.” 

It’s those opening numbers and the vamps therein that give us the broad outline, the overall feel, and a microcosm of what each show is about. At the same time, K&E have given us story songs that are incredibly specific, which benefit from meticulous details that meaningfully illuminate the big picture. “Colored Lights” is a particular triumph: Liza Minnelli introduced it in “The Rink,” with a kind of calliope accompaniment that suited the circus-y subject matter, and Ms. Mason sang it in “And The World Goes ’Round” and recorded it with a small orchestra on that show’s original cast album.

Her new recording outclasses both: At 73, she’s truly grown into the song. Now, she only needs a piano accompaniment; the additional instruments on the earlier recordings suddenly seem extraneous. The song is essentially a musical monologue in which the speaker is rifling through the album of her memory looking for “something missing” in her life. 

The way she falters in the process — in fact, she can’t even remember who her current husband or life partner is, and keeps addressing him by different first names — is completely convincing, a tour-de-force for a singer-actress. Those sections, which are in 2/4, make me think of story songs of the younger team of Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire, who, like Kander & Ebb, have a unique ability to tell a whole story, even conveying an entire lifetime, in a five-minute song.  

Yet “Colored Lights” is even more: the song repeatedly shifts completely into 3/4 interludes, using the waltz time to convey a convincing musical metaphor of lost innocence; “Colored Lights” is almost like a mashup of Stephen Sondheim and Jacques Brel. 

The other standout story song is no surprise: “Ring Them Bells,” written for Ms. Minnelli for the 1972 TV production “Liza with a Z.” Every time Ms. Mason, a native Chicagoan, starts to sing it, my gorge rises at her over-the-top caricature of a New Yawk accent. Yet she always wins me over within a few lines with this tale of an Upper West Side bachelorette, Shirley Devore, traipsing around the beaches of greater Europe looking for love.

Then too, the comparatively simpler songs are also powerful statements. Having demonstrated the iconic vamp to “New York, New York,” she then proceeds to sing the song without it.

I thought I was done with the song after Sinatra and Ms. Minnelli sang it to death 50 years ago. Up to now, “New York, New York” had invariably been rendered in the fashion of “My Way” or “Once in a Lifetime” (Anthony Newley, not David Byrne), with overarching confidence — as if it were a victory lap of a song. 

Ms. Mason and Mr. Denny reverse-engineer “New York, “New York” into something profoundly the opposite, which somehow seems closer to what the lyrics are actually saying, a song of aspirations rather than achievement, looking forward rather than behind. They enhance that general feeling by seamlessly transitioning into “All I Need is One Good Break” (from “Flora”), and over the course of the five-minute track she gradually modulates moods: from trepidation to determination to sheer tenacity. By the end of the number, you feel that she has truly earned that victory lap. Start spreading the news.

Birdland on November 25 is presenting “Sing Happy,” a benefit for the Fred Ebb Foundation featuring the songs of Kander & Ebb. Hosted by Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch, it will include performances by Klea Blackhurst, Graham Rowat, Gabrielle Stravelli, Kate Baldwin, Heidi Blickenstaff, Julia Murney, Debbie Gravitte, Luke Hawkins, and others.