For this December, if you really want to get into the cheer of the season, why not check out Terese Genecco and her Little Big Band play at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York?
Terese and her band currently hold the title as the longest-running nightclub act on Broadway, having played on the last Tuesday of every month from March 2009 through their 100th performance last May 20, 2014.
Now they’re playing on Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at the Iridium on Broadway in a show called Have Yourself a Merry Little Big Band!
Spotlight on Terese Genecco
Before making a name for herself in New York City, Terese was already gathering applause as the San Francisco-Bay Area’s “Entertainer of the Year,” in the wake of her winning the debut category and the overall title in a 2003 Cabaret competition.
Since then, she’s played on both coasts and around the world in major jazz and concert events. Before her run on Broadway, she had a jazz-musical live tribute show, Drunk with Love: A Tribute to Frances Faye! in 2005, which was later released as an album in 2006.
She’s also scored a number of awards and nominations, the latest being: two 2014 MAC Award nominations for Major Artist and Ensemble Instrumentalist (drummer); two 2013 MAC Award nominations for Major Artist and Best CD/Recording; four BroadwayWorld.com New York Cabaret Award nominations from 2012 to 2014 for Best Female Vocalist, Best CD/Recording, and Show Of The Year.
Before this, she was the late-night headliner in downtown San Francisco where she appeared with her 7-piece “little big band” doing a raucous Vegas-style nightclub act.
She’s opened for Grammy-Winning producer/singer Steve Tyrell at the Bergen Performing Arts Center, as well as headlined the legendary Fillmore Jazz Festival and the Main Stages at San Francisco and New York City’s Pride celebrations.
In 2011, she toured Australia and New Zealand with fellow New York City jazz vocalist Shaynee Rainbolt.
Aside from her tribute album (which won her a MAC Award), she had a debut single, “If I Was A Boy,” which was nominated for “Love Song Of The Year” and “Single of The Year” by the LGBT Academy of Recording Arts in December 2010.
Terese Genecco’s music
What you can expect from this one night with Terese Genecco and her band?
In a review of Terese’s 2012 album, Stephen Hanks of Broadwayworld.com said listening to Terese’s music “will transport you back to the 1950s and ’60s, a time when the great nightclub singers would make an audience swing and sway while delivering some of the greatest pop, jazz, blues, and Broadway standards their way.”
“Genecco, with sensational support from her 8-piece ‘Little Big Band’, is a ball of entertaining energy and charisma who conjures up memories of Frank, Dean, Sammy, and the classic lounge singers from Mel Torme to Marilyn Maye, yet Terese makes musical magic with a powerful and distinctive vocal style all her own,” Hanks added.
Meanwhile, Lynda Sturner of Nite Life Exchange said of their performance: “Terese nails those Rat Pack songs, making them sound as cool and hot as they were when Nelson Riddle first arranged them and Frank, Dino and Sammy rocked Vegas.”
“I felt that high, up, zingy Vegas thing where everyone’s in love, anything’s possible and a this-is-the-night-you-get-lucky vibe in the room that Tuesday night. When she sings “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Cole Porter, I could almost hear the bells ringing on those slot machines and see the golden coins come pouring out,” Sturner said.
But if you prefer to see them to believe the reviews, watch the video below of Terese Genecco playing with her band at the Iridium. Or better yet, watch them live in New York this December!
