Cabaret Music

Cabaret music, though not always and specifically jazz, is closely associated with jazz music because of its historical roots and the venues in which it was performed. Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue — a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables (often dining or drinking) watching the performance being introduced by a master of ceremonies, or MC.

In the United States, cabaret diverged into several different styles of performance mostly due to the influence of Jazz Music. Chicago cabaret focused intensely on the larger band ensembles and reached its peak in the speakeasies, and steakhouses (like The Palm) of the Prohibition Era. New York cabaret never developed to feature a great deal of social commentary. When New York cabarets featured jazz, they tended to focus on famous vocalists like Eartha Kitt and Hildegarde rather than instrumental musicians.

Cabaret music is a style of music that is personified by the late Bobby Short. He worked solo, playing piano and singing. He chose material that often (but not always) came from Broadway shows and the American Popular Songbook, the music written by American songwriters like George & Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, etc. A lot of the repertoire was played differently by jazz players or performed on the Broadway stage. But in cabaret format, it is just singer and pianist (duo or solo) in a performance much more about the lyrics and story than the music/harmony. Clever lyrics or really poignant, sad songs make great pieces for Cabaret. The singers have to be good, though they don't always have the best voices. They MUST be able to act. They are also about style and dressing up. Some other famous/quasi-famous singers who are Cabaret are/were Michael Feinstein, Mabel Mercer, Edith Piaf and Sylvia Syms.