By Justin Hayford
Don’t warble something trite by Jerry Herman
Don’t tell me it’s a song that I don’t want to play…
Take my advice and
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Tonight’s first set was a giddy cavalcade of gaffes and blunders. Menzie’s voice cracked on the third measure of her opening number, a satirical homage to plastic surgery she just wrote called “Color Me Beautiful.” Then Tracy came up from the tiny audience and proceeded to drop several lyrics. Dawn-Marie started her second song in the wrong key. I took a stab at “Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block” and stared stupidly for a good 30 seconds trying to remember the second verse. But then there are few things more valuable to a musician than a safe place to fall on your ass.
Don’t worry if your pitch is not perfection
“She loved the fact that I was embellishing,” Menzie says. “She was just as interested in developing my mind as my music. So she started challenging me to improvise.” After two years Miss Ross told Menzie she had nothing more to teach her.
