Lenni Jabour thinks she has the banter problem solved.
It’s a perennial quandry faced by performing musicians everywhere-how to fill the gaps between songs when one is on stage? Some musicians choose to attempt conversation with the audience: calls of “How is everyone doing?” followed by loud, drunken cheering are commonplace at concerts. Others try to tell stories about their songs or their lives, to varying degrees of success. One thing is common about all these strategies-most of the banter is ad-libbed, often leading to predictably disastrous results. Local piano songstress Lenni Jabour and her band The Third Floor came up with a novel strategy to solve this problem: Why not script the banter and link it into the music in a linear way? At this point it must have occurred to Jabour that this forms exactly the basis for another art form: the musical.
Whether or not Jabour’s thinking fell along these lines, the end result is the same. Jabour’s cabaret-styled concerts have long been an interesting diversion from the usual singer-songwriter shows that grace local music venues. Admittedly, though, her between-song chatter and shenanigans were often bizarre as she took on the persona of different 1920s characters. To resolve this, Jabour recently returned to the Rivoli at the end of July (following a year’s hiatus in Los Angeles) to debut what she calls a “musical theatre production” entitled Songs From The Third Floor. Featuring notable guests such as Canadian Opera Company singer Vilma Vitois and actors Mark Alduos and Ron Obadia, the premise of the production is that of a young woman who imagines her apartment transformed into a 1920s cabaret with herself as the host, replete with walk-on appearances from characters such as her gay neighbour Alistair (Obadia) and the seductive, mysterious Frenchwoman from the end of the hall (Vitois).
The extent to which this entire charade worked is less clear. The production, while professionally written and produced by Jabour in conjunction with Hollywood-based Figgy Pudding Productions, suffered from a lack of continuity. This was likely due to an attempt to forcibly tie together unrelated musical material with a narrative; many of the songs featured in the production date from before Jabour’s departure for Los Angeles. In addition, with the exception of Obadia, Alduos and Vitois, none of the musicians, Jabour herself included, were actors. As the central character in the production, Jabour could certainly benefit from some additional drama training, as she occasionally appeared awkward and contrived.
The production had a number of positive moments. The appearance of Obadia as Alistair Lowy, the smartly-dressed “gay neighbour”, accompanied by a number with that theme, was very clever and served as an example of the kind of cohesiveness between the dramatic and musical material that was needed for the show to succeed. The same can be said for Vitois’ walk-on as the mysterious, sexy French woman from down the hall. Dressed in a slinky black evening dress and armed with a glass of red wine, she delivers a hilarious send-up of the classic femme fatale role.
Jabour is a musician and songwriter first, and while the dramatic element adds an interesting twist to the performance, she should be evaluated on the basis of whether the music is acceptable or not. There is no doubt that Jabour is a first-rate songwriter-her songs are catchy, well-orchestrated and make good use of her talents as a pianist, as well as those of her five-piece orchestra. Her vocal abilities are another matter, however. After many years on the club circuit, she still has not lost the edge in her voice as well as her tendency to growl out lyrics at the top of her lungs. One audience member was overheard to remark that Jabour is at a point in her career where she needs to retain a voice coach to smooth out some of those deficiencies.
As a whole, Songs From The Third Floor was an interesting attempt to meld drama with music. To call it an actual musical, however, would be stretching the definition of what a musical really is. At best, the production was a concert with that dreaded enemy of the performing musician, the chatter between songs, tidied up and packaged as a neat unit. Judged against that yardstick, Jabour does manage to come out on top, carried by her songwriting and performance skills, less so by her attempt at drama.
Lenni Jabour plays a rare solo show at C’est What September 12th.
