At the Algonquin

Liner Notes

JESSICA MOLASKEY AND DAVE FRISHBERG
AT THE ALGONQUIN

The Oak Room Supper Club, which has been presenting top-shelf cabaret and jazz singers from inside the Algonquin Hotel for 32 years, was permanently shuttered on January 1, 2012.

The Oak Room, a New York landmark as the site of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, became a nightclub for the first time in 1939. This performance on March 26, 2011 marks, what we believe to be, the last recorded performance in the Room. We have tried to present the atmosphere of the Algonquin show as it was performed The music speaks for itself and includes many Frishberg favorites. To learn more about these wonderful artists, visit their websites for bio info and other current releases: www.jessicamolaskey.com, www.davefrishberg.com.

– The Producers

Dave adds:

So they closed the Oak Room at the Algonquin? Playing there was always a pleasure for me. Good piano, good sound. Playing and singing with Jessica is a joy. I remember the very first time we rehearsed a couple of years back, when I knew after about four bars that there would be no problems with Jess. Musically she’s impeccable, and she brings a theatrical dimension to my songs that I really respond to and enjoy. She listens, and if I take a left she’s got me covered.

At the time of this recording, I had recently written songs for a play about the Algonquin Roundtable. So it made perfect sense to include a couple of those, especially when you’ve got Jessica to play Dorothy Parker. She nails Parker’s character with Excuse Me For Living. During this three week engagement, Jess gave me chills every night when she sang that song and it’s chills that I’m after.

It’s sad to see the end of the Oak Room. But hey, I miss everything. I’m accustomed to it.

– Dave Frishberg, March 2012

Jessica adds:

I never dreamed of being a Cabaret artist. Perhaps because I was all too aware of how dangerously exposed it was. To me it seemed like tight rope walking without a net, in rhinestones and very high heels. Never was it more apparent than in the intimate confines of the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel. I spent many an evening and often my last dollar to sit in that cloistered and hallowed ground. An Old Catholic, I would compare its monastic, wooden walls to a church. When the door to the lobby would shut tight, as the show was about to begin, one was reminded of a confessional booth, where past sins would be forgiven through song.

I laughed at Mary Cleere Haran’s dry comedic talent, reveled in Diana Krall’s swing, was tutored in lyric writing by Dave Frishberg’s singular way with words and music and got lost in the hypnotic spell of mother and son, as Bill Charlap and Sandy Stewart prayed their way through the American Songbook. Last, but not least, how could I forget a particular Saint Valentine’s evening when I fell in love, literally, while watching a young guitarist named Pizzarelli change the molecular structure of the room with a death defying I’VE GOT RHYTHM!

When the call came to inquire as to whether I would be interested in doing a duo evening with Dave Frishberg at the Oak Room, I was beside myself. Dave has always been one of my heroes. He combines the acerbic wit and depth of lyric writing that I had come to revere in the genius of such Broadway composers as Stephen Sondheim or Larry Hart. What makes him completely unique is that musically, his heart and soul are firmly rooted in the idiomatic language of Jazz. The history of the Oak Room’s literary past seemed to linger in the ether of the building, with the round table, made infamous by Dorothy Parker and her brilliant cohorts, only a few feet away. This proximity seemed like a perfect opportunity to debut Dave’s most recent compositions, the humorous and tragic Excuse Me For Living and Will You Die?, to a New York audience. Bohr of these songs were written as part of a theater piece that Mr. Frishberg was creating about Dorothy Parker and her band of writers from The New Yorker. Their daily Algonquin liquid lunches made for an historic chapter in the annals of NewYork’s literati.

When we recorded this evening of Frishbergian song, we were oblivious to the fact that this sacred spot would soon be torn down a few months later to become a rewards lounge for a major hotel chain. A place, no doubt, where weary businessmen will rest after a long day’s journey and enjoy all the free pigs-in-a blankets all you can eat and watered down Scotch you can drink. I am sure that many of these unsuspecting travelers will never know the depth of artistry that went on in this now generic space surrounding them. I suspect that this recording may be a remnant of a disappearing time, one where the act of weaving words and music together was considered high art and where the echoes of the steps of tight rope walkers would abound.

– Jessica Molaskey, March 2012

THE CREDITS

• Produced By: Dave Frishberg and Jessica Molaskey
• Executive Producers: Rachel and Mat Domber for Arbors Records, Inc.
• Performed: At the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, March 15 to April 2, 2011
• Recorded: March 26, 2011 by Bill Moss
• Mixed and Mastered by: Bill Moss
• Cover Design: Adapted by Luke Melton from performance poster