As far as Ellen Kaye is concerned, the whole point of cabaret is that when it's over, "you can go home and have great sex." She makes it as clear as a spring sky that she's going to do her utmost to help the foreplay along. She'll tell you as much forthrightly, not to say blatantly.
For that reason, just about every song she warbled during her recent Metropolitan Room one-nighter simmered with sexuality. To quote the old Jayne Mansfield movie title, the girl can't help it. She doesn't even modulate her remarks when her teenage son is in the audience -- as he was. "He's here because I had sex," she bubbled without the slightest hint of embarrassment.
Enhancing the erotically charged atmosphere, she used only guitarist Tony Romano for accompaniment, and who needs to be told that voice and guitar make a particularly potent let's-get-it-on combo? Certainly no one who recalls Johnny Mathis' 1959 album Open Fire, Two Guitars. It's possible that platter was responsible for more births than any other best-selling disk you might name.
Anyway, Kaye's enthusiasm for quality hanky-panky is couched within a larger context of positive thinking. Opening with Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Why Walk When You Can Fly" done a cappella, she espoused making the most of opportunities and followed through with the Dorothy Field–Jimmy McHugh "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "Sunday Kind of Love" (Barbara Belle–Louis Prima–Anita Leonard–Stan Rhodes), and "One Hundred Years From Today" (Ned Washington–Victor Young–Joseph Young). She was more sexually explicit with the torrid likes of "Invitation to the Blues" (Tom Waits), "All or Nothing at All" (Jack Lawrence–Arthur Altman), and "Tempted" (Chris Difford–Glenn Tilbrook).
It'll never be said that Kaye has a big voice. It's actually small and best suited to lighter material -- there's a gaiety pulsing within it. When she goes for weightier ballads like, say, the impassioned "All or Nothing at All," she sometimes falls short of the mark. Yet the overall effect is infectious fun from someone making the most of her ambition, vitality, serviceable pipes, and love of songs that stretches from brightening old standards to stressing the validity of more recent ones such as "Valentine's Day" (Bruce Springsteen) and "Boys in the Trees" (Carly Simon).
Presented by and at the Metropolitan Room,
34 W. 22nd St., NYC.
Feb. 9.