Ericwords

Words About Eric

Eric Comstock
by Rob Lester
EDGE Entertainment Contributor
Thursday Feb 1, 2007

He’s a song lover, a song searcher, and a songwriter admirer, and has many favorites. When singer-pianist Eric Comstock got a gig for Sunday and Monday nights throughout February, the question was which of his favorites on his wish list to pick as a theme. He didn’t take the easy way out. He decided to do a completely different show each week. "I’m really excited about this!" he enthused, happy to talk to Edge about his plans.

"The theme for the month is ’Manhattan Masters’ and that’s important to me. It’s a fun way to salute the great contributors who spent so much of their time in New York. So many of these songs couldn’t have been written in any other place." This is especially true of the first tributed songwriter, Charles Strouse, whose shows Annie, Applause, A Broadway Musical, Rags, Bye Bye Birdie and Golden Boy all have New York as their setting. Eric is especially fond of Golden Boy and that score will be well represented. Doing a Charles Strouse night "has been on my mind for years," says Eric who calls the composer "a great musical dramatist" who "transcends catchy show tunes. He wrote deeper." Eric admires the fact that "he appreciates jazz, and I have always believed he contributed to the jazz repertory," noting that Strouse has liked jazz artists interpreting his music. "And he keeps in there swingin’" adds the singer, but by "swingin’" Comstock (who swings songs very well indeed when he chooses to) was referring not to jazz to the fact that Strouse is still actively writing new shows in the increasingly difficult climate for new musicals to get produced. "He’s got fifteen shows in his mind," he says of the composer (and sometime lyricist) who has all kinds of projects on front and back burners, including the stage adaptation of the film Marty.

On opening night, February 4th, Charles Strouse himself will appear as Eric’s special guest and will do a couple of his own numbers. "I got to spend an hour with him, talking about his songs," which of course was the highlight of the research process. He also enjoyed finding extra lyrics for "You’ve Got Possibilities" from It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman (a show being revived soon at The Duplex by the Opening Doors Theater company whose terrific presentation of another Strouse show, Bring Back Birdie, was recently reviewed here at Edge. It also had the composer in attendance.) Another treat in the excavation was a number from the film The Night They Raided Minsky’s, also in Eric’s set. "It’s glorious and I didn’t know it before!" he exclaims like a kid who just found discovered a delicious new flavor of ice cream.

Similar finds and polishing of gems are part of the Comstock stock in trade. There will be more in the upcoming shows later in February spotlighting lyricist E.Y. Harburg, composer Jule Styne, and the nights dedicated to saloon songs and saloon singers. But don’t think that means this is an esoteric sort of thing just for music fans equally dedicated and educated. "My first job is to ENTERTAIN" he asserts emphatically. As any of us who have enjoyed his past performances will assure you, Eric is more playful than professorial. "I’m not overly reverential. The shows are gonna be fun, and I don’t present the songs as museum pieces." He’ll be telling some chatty stories behind the songs written for Lauren Bacall, Sammy Davis, Jr., etc., "name-dropping," as well as what he calls his "offstage wonkery."

His Yip Harburg nights will show the many trips the lyricist and poet took beyond his most famous journey: the one that followed the yellow brick road for the songs from The Wizard Of Oz. "I’ll be doing some of his political songs, including my favorite socialist hymn---I can do that when I’m on the west side," remarks the comical Comstock, noting that the series’ venue, The Metroplitan Room, just qualifies. It’s half a block west of Fifth
Avenue, Manhattan’s equivalent of the Mason-Dixon line dividing East side, West side, all around the town.

Harburg’s contributions to shows like Finian’s Rainbow and Bloomer Girl and Darling Of The Day, written with composer Jule Styne. Styne will be the subject for his own two nights, encoring a tribute Eric did at Lincoln Center. "My first job is to ENTERTAIN" he asserts emphatically. As any of us who have enjoyed his past performances will assure you, Eric is more playful than professorial.

With Styne, again there was a huge wealth of material to draw from, including a few that became a part of Eric’s world in the long-running three-person revue, Our Sinatra, one of the major feathers in his well-feathered cap. The Styne catalogue ranges from comedy songs like Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend (which Eric has a picnic with in a giant medley) to the romantic World War II ballads, movie musicals, and of course more Broadway classics like Gypsy, Funny Girl, and Bells Are Ringing.

And look for velvety vocalist Barbara Fasano to guest on the Styne show. He appears as her duet partner on a track on her new CD, Written In The Stars, a tribute to another composer, Harold Arlen. One of Arlen’s frequent collaborators was Harburg-see how it all just happens to fit together? Eric is especially fond of that CD and that female singer-in fact, they are now married, having been officially pronounced man and diva.
Their joint nightclub appearance made them finalists in the cabaret duo/group category for The Nightlife Awards (presented Monday at Town Hall) and Eric was a finalist in the male jazz singer category. He was especially honored to be a finalist in two very different slots. But it doesn’t surprise me: he has one foot in cabaret and one foot in jazz, and to extend the metaphor to its breaking point, he jumps into his work with both feet.

The saloon nights ending the series "won’t just be bar room songs." No, not an endless set of cry-in-your-beer songs about drinking. "That would be too much. You’d have to pick me off the floor." Instead, this guy who knows his way around playing a saloon or two will give "revisit my mentors" of the style and ambience. One will show up in person as a guest: John Wallowitch.

But the end of the month seems a way off, as does a new recording project he’s thinking of to add to the three fine CDs he has on the market. "Right now, I just need to survive February" he laughs of his constantly changing focus and tune pile. As we spoke, he was mostly focused on the Strouse night. "I like to salute the living composers. The royalties mean so much more to them," he cracks. He’s also delighted to have Count Basie band member Frank Wess on sax and flute for the first shows. "He played in the pit for Golden Boy!" cries Eric, raring to sing the score and praises of that show, which includes a song that seems to echo the mindset of the singer and pianist who enjoys doing this work so much. It’s called This Is The Life: he’s having a grand time at the grand piano and wants you to have a great night (or nights), also. – Rob Lester, Edge

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NY Times

“Gliding against the Manhattan skyline in top hat and tails, his modest voice suave and friendly, Fred Astaire may represent the ultimate antidote to an agitated pop climate dominated by beat-driven boasts. That may be the reason two superb tributes to Astaire are playing simultaneously: they're needed for relief.

The newer one, "Singing Astaire: A Fred Astaire Songbook," is a swift, invigorating pop-jazz revue at Birdland. It reunites Eric Comstock, a polished Astaire vocal acolyte and pianist, with the pop-jazz singer Hilary Kole and with Christopher Gines, a curly-headed crooner with the vocal cream of the early Sinatra. Together with Andrea Marcovicci's intensely romantic tribute at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, the shows offer yin-yang perspectives on a legend.

The approach of Mr. Comstock and his partners, who collaborated on the revue "Our Sinatra," is more down to earth and jazzy. Mr. Comstock notes that in 1952 Astaire teamed with the pianist Oscar Peterson to record a classic jazz album of the songs he made famous. As "Singing Astaire," directed by Michael Bourne, glosses nearly 30 numbers, it avoids shuffling the performers into stiff, uncomfortable poses that makes so many revues look like human puppet shows.

The chemistry among the three singers (backed by bass and drums) is smooth as a 1940's movie fantasy. Mr. Comstock, understated but articulate, swinging but intelligent, and Ms. Kole, sexy with a sharp-edged hint of brass in her voice, rub together much like Astaire and Ginger Rogers, recalling Katharine Hepburn's remark about the duo that he gave her class and she gave him sex.

Each of the three has an outstanding solo turn with many duets and trios in between. Mr. Comstock's moody "Something's Gotta Give" finds the interior life in a cheery summons to a romantic joust. Ms. Kole's "Night and Day" locates the desperation and impatience lurking in Cole Porter's besotted lyrics. And Mr. Gines builds "My Shining Hour" into a stately pop aria.

"Singing Astaire" culminates with a medley of songs about dancing that picks up the show's pulse and musically ends it in a whirl of giddy but controlled breathlessness, one foot off the ground.” - Stephen Holden, NY Times, Dec. 2004

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Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“Comstock "won over the crowd with superb music and pitch-perfect patter. Part sprite and part sophisticate,

Comstock is very smart, very witty and very much in love with his material: the American popular song. By the time his set is

up, you'll be a little bit in love with him, too....spins a fascinating evening of song and story...Let the young man from Manhattan

entertain you. He'll do so  in high style." Kathy Janich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

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 “If you sat in Siena Heights University's Francoeur Theater this past Saturday night and closed your eyes, and it would

have been like being transported to the Oak Room at New York's Algonquin Hotel for an evening.

  The Adrian Symphony Orchestra, which during the past few seasons hasn't been afraid at all to break out of the box labeled

"traditional symphony orchestra" and work to meet a wide range of musical needs in the community, brought New York

singer-pianist Eric Comstock to town for an evening of classic American songs. Cheers to the ASO for doing so.

Comstock, well known to audiences at the aforementioned Oak Room as well as venues such as Carnegie Hall and

Lincoln Center, came to ASO Music Director John Dodson's attention one day when Dodson heard him on the radio and

decided he wanted to bring him to Adrian for a concert.

   Dodson's hunch about Comstock as an entertainer paid off. With an engaging, affable delivery that, if anything, improved

as the evening went on, Comstock sang and played his way through two hours' worth of  standards (and not-so-standards)

by a veritable Who's Who of American music: Gershwin, Porter, Ellington, Strayhorn, Lerner, Berlin, Rodgers and Hart,

and more. The wide-ranging program included chestnuts such as "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," "'S' Wonderful,"

"I Get a Kick Out of You," and "That Old Devil Moon," as well as some complete surprises, like a Billy Strayhorn

tune called "No One Knows" that was never recorded and, in fact, was having its premiere at this concert.

   Comstock is a first-rate interpreter of this music sand

sings not only with nice musicianship but with great showmanship as well, knowing exactly how to get every bit of meaning

out of a song  while putting his own clever touches on the music, too.

   "Pennies from Heaven," for example, had a few bars of "Singing in the Rain" inserted at the end -- think of the lyrics

 to the first tune, and you'll know why that's so perfect -- and Rodgers and Hart's "Mountain Greenery" concluded with a

dash of the theme music to "Green Acres."

   Interspersed between the pieces were stories about the men who wrote them or the people who sang them that provided

some interesting, and often humorous, insights. Who knew that Cole Porter once attended a party with the bearded lady

from the Ringling Brothers circus, just to make a joke on the guest of honor? Tidbits like that added greatly to the concert experience.

   Comstock proved himself adept at segueing effortlessly between often-very-different types of music and weaving together this varied

program seamlessly.

   His stories, some well-timed jokes, and easygoing manner with the audience blended smoothly and seemingly effortlessly with the music.

It's not often that one gets the opportunity anymore to hear tunes like these played. Gershwin, Porter, and all the rest of those great

American composers would appreciate knowing there are a few people such as Comstock out there to help keep their music alive.” Arlene Bachanov - Adrian (Michigan) Daily Telegram, May 24, 2004

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RE: Made for the Movies: A Hollywood Songbook – Take 2: Eric Comstock is the best kind of scholar… (He) is as interested in pop standards as any other musical-theatre devotee, but his maverick streak makes him much more than a nostalgist. Those lucky enough to be in attendance when Comstock’s Made for the Movies: A Hollywood Songbook debuted… witnessed a performer whose entertainment savvy matched his extensive knowledge of classic pop. “ K. Leander Williams, TimeOut NewYork. September 2002.

“ Made for the Movies: A Hollywood Songbook is one witty, irresistible show. Made for the Movies boasts three consummate jazz singers =-- each one a bona fide scene stealer – coming together with a lively rhythm section and letting the music take center stage…

Then there is Comstock. He is one rare performer, with the everyman physical presence of a young Jack Lemmon, a wild sense of rhythm and a gift for never pushing the voice in a song. He opens the show with Star Eyes from, of all things, a Red Skelton vehicle called ‘I Dood It’.” Octavio Roca, The San Francisco Chronicle. May 2002

"In days of tragedy and heartbreak, nothing soothes an aching heart like music. Here's an excellent prescription for the blahs, and you don't even have to leave town. Get away from the television news and rush to the Algonquin's Oak Room instantly, where a snappy and very sophisticated new revue called Made for the Movies: A Hollywood Songbook is a thing of joy indeed. The polished, irresistible performers include three singers, two grand pianos, one bass and one drummer who tear the place apart with style and wit and a generosity of spirit that is all too rare in times like these.
Veteran jazz singer Bill Henderson dispenses sage advice layered in the lyrics of Johnny Mercer. Singer-pianist Eric Comstock, an original cast member of the long-running revue Our Sinatra who created this new show in the same style, plays his nimble fingers off on the Duke Ellington theme music from Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder, with lyrics by Peggy Lee. And a lovely, dazzlingly talented newcomer named Dena DeRose swings in chords, bends notes in tempo and cools down the kilowatts with her midnight-blue ballads. Expect the unexpected. This inventive trio eschews the merely popular and the downright boring, opting for underexposed gems like "There Is No Music," a Harry Warren-Ira Gershwin treasure written for Judy Garland when she was originally signed to co-star with Fred Astaire in The Barkleys of Broadway, then deleted when she was replaced by Ginger Rogers. Mr. Comstock rescues it, appealingly.
Mr. Henderson's bravura arrangement of "Hooray for Hollywood" becomes a one-man comic travesty of everything iconic about the Land of La, and the trio's engaging three-part vocal harmony on Bob Hope's signature song, "Thanks for the Memory," ends the evening with show-stopping panache. This is the kind of marvelous entertainment we need a lot more of these days." Rex Reed, New York Observer, October 3-9, 2001

"Made for the Movies is the brainchild of the singer and pianist Eric Comstock, who put together the smart and heartfelt three-person show Our Sinatra, which has become a successful franchise. With his latest creation, also a three-singer show but with an added rhythm section (Matt Wilson on drums and Chris Berger on bass), Mr. Comstock has outdone himself. One of his strengths is his talent for casting singers whose musical personalities complement one another. Joining him and Mr. Henderson is Dena DeRose, whose clear, medium-light voice, fleet, wistful pianism and cool intelligence are the icing on this nostalgia cake." Stephen Holden, New York Times, September 12, 2001

Re: Made for the Movies: A Hollywood Songbook – “Before Comstock does Duke Ellington's “I'm Gonna Go Fishin'”(from his score for Anatomy of a Murder) with lyrics by Peggy Lee, (Comstock) and Henderson trade famous Ducal pick-up lines, an appropriate intro to a song deep into double- entendres. In an added jazz twist, (Matt) Wilson trades cleverly fashioned solos with Comstock. Another instrumental highlight is DeRose's The Bad and the Beautiful, with a (Chris) Berger bass solo... Other highlights of the show's opening week (Comstock calls it still a "work in progress") were a medley of “The Shining Sea” and “The Shadow of Your Smile” by the two pianist-singers, ultimately blending the two songs into one duet. Also, Henderson's exuberant “Hooray for Hollywood”, DeRose's “Green Dolphin Street” given a marching lilt by Wilson, and a rollicking “I'll Remember April” from all three singers and four instruments." George Kanzler, Newark Star Ledger, September 14, 2001

"STUNNING...AN UTTERLY WINNING TRIBUTE TO OL’ BLUE EYES...SUPERIOR ENTERTAINMENT!!!" Stephen Holden, NY Times. December 1999.

"How is a young male performer to approach the legacy of Frank Sinatra without sounding like an inferior parodist of something that can't be duplicated? Eric Comstock, a rising young cabaret singer and pianist, has found a way in his utterly winning tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes at the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel....with a perfectly phrased and enunciated authority is the little-known ballad 'To Love and Be Loved'...he meticulously takes the rhythmic pulse of each number and swings out with a steady, easygoing bonhomie." Stephen Holden, New York Times, August 5, 1999.

"Energetic delivery and barreling pianism don't compromise his sensitivity to lyrics and refined taste in material...(A) keen interpretive intelligence...and he's a polished, enthusiastic storyteller." Stephen Holden, New York Times. 1999.

"Cabaret, in the hands...of fellows like (Comstock) could not be in better shape." Robert Osborne, The Hollywood Reporter.

"One of the best singer-pianist in the city...He sings as beautifully as he plays." Eric Myers, Time Out, New York.

"A walking encyclopedia of show songs...(Comstock) revels in songs." Philip Elwood, San Francisco Examiner.

"A song's best friend...a suave vocalist with Cole Porter-like charm and wit..." L. Pierce Carson, Napa Valley Register.

"Superb..breathtaking." Andrew Patner, Chicago Sun-Times