MAUDE MAGGART

A New York native, Miss Maggart majored in voice and dance at the High School for Music and Art and the Performing Arts. She made her professional debut as "Amy" in Marshall Barer and Hugh Martin's "A Happy Lot."

Review:  At the Gardenia Room, October 5

Overheard murmur: "I don't like tripods shooting people," and then the pall of conversational absurdity is suddenly suspended by the crystalline tones of Maude Maggart's clear, lush vibrato. Names from the slowly yellowing past -- Flo Ziegfeld, Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice -- mesh with the surrealism of her story of feather-headed showgirls sliding down a collapsing stairway. Chins are stroked to the dulcet harmonies of "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody." At "Second Hand Rose," the light runs red across the piano-inflected jaunt of the moment as hidden feelings are exhumed from the iced earth of memory. "My Man" unveils Maggart's voice (exceptionally well-suited for the downtown Broadway theater district) as something rarely heard in today's vale of woe and atonality; a cabaret of light forms as the smoke of her voice enters the air and swings gently in the evanescent evening.

Tales of her grandmother (a 1926 Georgie White "Scandals" ballerina) dressed as a tassel on the stage curtain segue into invocation of Helen "Show Boat" Morgan, mother of all torch songs, on "Nobody Wants Me." Perched atop piano (played by John Boswell), she sings "Bill" with a joyous laugh in her voice that celebrates somehow, despite feeling like a hundred bucks, or when one gets nothing and likes it. "Why Was I Born," "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" -- all sung so persuasively that it seems, in fact, she sings directly to you. The songs brim with the conflict of the double-entendre 1920s clashing with chaste Victorian mores to create a fountain of fervent desire and heartfelt confessions. Around the corner, a venerable neighborhood car wash is razed. "Love Me or Leave Me"? "More Than You Know"? Bitter, sweet, etc. (David Cotner)

source:  LA Weekly

Additional Links

MaudeMaggart.com