"The Devil's Music" is not much of a play, but it is a socko cabaret act. Subtitled "The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith," the 90-minute entertainment is set in a Memphis "buffet flat," an after-hours venue that provided entertainment, food, and pleasures of a salacious nature. The time is 1937, specifically the night that Smith was in a serious car accident and bled to death because no white hospital would take her. The play is the act Smith performs before her fatal automobile ride.
Angelo Parra's script merely acts as a means for Miche Braden to take center stage, powerfully deliver several Bessie Smith standards, and relate the story of the great blues singer's volatile life. The excuse for the monologue is a bit strained. "Oh, I just feel like talking between songs" seems to be the main justification for the spoken dialogue. Her premonitions of impending doom are repetitive and ridiculous. The interjections of piano man Pickle are superfluous, especially when delivered in such a forced manner by actor-musician Terry Walker.
But those are only minor quibbles. Braden is big, sassy, and unstoppable. Her voice is rich and powerful, running the gamut from bawdy humor (she relishes the gastronomic double entendres of "Kitchen Man Blues") to heartbreaking pathos (a tearful "I Ain't Got Nobody" comments on Smith losing her son in a custody battle). We get to hear a thrilling "St. Louis Blues," which becomes a sizzling battle between Braden and sax player Pierre Andre.
Joe Brancato's smooth staging offsets the script's occasional clunkiness. Matthew Maraffi's intimate set conveys the combination of urban sophistication and the rural down home atmosphere that was the milieu of this legendary performer.