Review: Scott Siegel Celebrates Frank Sinatra at 54 Below

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A swell show celebrating a legendary singer. Scott Siegel will encore the show Jul 19, Sep 1, and Dec 26 at 54 Below

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Wearing a fedora like the man whose music was being celebrated, on-stage host and producer Scott Siegel tipped his hat to Frank Sinatra once again on June 11 at 54 Below. His amiable, fact-filled introductions give historical context with a personal touch, without becoming a lecture or fervent fan club meeting. He has frequent flyer miles zooming through the catalogue of the legendary singer, having presented well over 100 nightclub concerts of the material. And you’ve gotta hand it to the impressive impresario and his hand-picked rotating robust company of vocalists who deserve a great big hand for handling the task of tributing by finding a happy medium between performances that closely, respectfully evoke the spirit of Sinatra’s iconic interpretations and stylings on one hand and thinking outside the (juke)box on the other hand. So they don’t take the well-trod “safe” but non-creative copycat path that borders on settling for a slavish imitation/impersonation situation. Nor do they go so very far off the beaten path to radically revise songs and original tempi for the misguided goal of being “different” so that there’s no significant suggestion of Sinatra.

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The primo pianist du jour was Michael Lavine , a happily ubiquitous presence at the piano at 54 Below (he played for two Broadway-themed Siegel concerts at the club two days later, two concert presentations of musicals, and returns on June 26th with Charles Kirsch’s spiffy, cheerfully chatty series Backstage Babble.

When this generation’s entertainers enter the arena to take on the songs most closely associated with and written for the legend who passed away in 1998, some fans unavoidably are also hearing Frank recordings long locked in their brains, as if his spirit is hovering and covering the nightclub’s room with musical magic. But it’s a friendly ghost – a welcome one, smiling at the moments that are clearly in evidence of his influence and grinning at the more daring and surprising personalizing. But if you walk into a Scott Siegel Sinatra salute at 54 Below, looking for someone to “play” Frank with his trademark timbre, tics, tricks, taking license with lyrics to slightly revise a few words, well, frankly, you’re in the wrong room.

The most striking and engaging performances of the night were turned in by the terrifically talented Tommy Ferolano. The two numbers assigned to him demonstrated not “merely” a clearly magnetic presence and compelling vocal sound, but laser-beam focus and commitment to lyrics. His bright-eyed, bright-voiced “My Funny Valentine” had just the right mix of innocence, infatuation, and reality check, checking all the boxes for connections to the lyric and to the very receptive 54 Below audience.

Later, he daringly dove into the despairing cry of “I’m a Fool to Want You,” diving into its desperation and devastation. He let himself be emotionally naked. Pain and powerlessness were palpable when he pleaded passionately but weakly, “Take me back, I love you/ Pity me: I need you”). While the concentration and sage “acting choices” indicate careful consideration of each line, he always seems to be living the statements and thoughts in the moment, at home with this vulnerable, vintage material. One can comfortably assume that this young man (not even born when Sinatra passed away in 1998) makes inhabiting a song a habit.

While the formidable Ferolano has fortuitously been added to the repertory company as “the new kid on the block” on savvy Siegel’s Sinatra Avenue, two other gentlemen in the June 11 set who've been around that block multiple times before — Ben Jones and Michael Winther – were in especially fine form. The former delivered two pieces about being alone after a break-up. He broke into a brokenhearted mode for the lament “It Never Entered My Mind.” Rodgers & Hart’s song was written for a female character in the musical Higher and Higher and that is evident in the introductory verse which mentions a woman’s lack of attention to her make-up, hair, using a mudpack. That’s why male vocalists often skip that part, but it entered Mr. Jones ’s mind to sing the verse with other lines that suited a guy’s careless self-care. The ache of loneliness came through. He brought coiled rage and then unabashed seething resentment and hurt to “I Wanna Be Around” – even stomping his feet in the calculated catharsis and full-out schadenfreude.

Michael Winther assertively drove home the bold “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die” and it fell to him to do the Sinatra signature “My Way.” Before he began, he mused aloud, addressing the crowd, “You know, you think you’ll never be old enough to sing this song.” So tailored to Ol’ Blue Eyes that it can seem either daunting, silly, or impertinent when someone with no sense of gravitas or reflective self-awareness tries to tackle it. Fortunately, Mr. Winther was up to the challenge, avoided any tentativeness or excessive strutting and self-congratulatory “story of my life” attitude. He offered big, bravura endings on both selections.

Gamely, Garrison Hunt injected some humor into the blithe but bland ditty “Love and Marriage,” but that wedding of a bouncy tune and simple lyric from the TV musical version of Our Town doesn’t give a singing actor much to work with. Working better for him was the torch song set in a bar, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” It was restrained and honored the classic. (I’ll drink to that.) On other selections in this program, one might miss the sound of brass and strings so impactful in arrangements for Sinatra, this standby saloon song was often done by him with just piano, and works so well that way, emphasizing the empty feeling of the drinker and the bar room that is empty except for the bartender listening to the sole customer’s woes.

Willie Demyan ably advocated loving someone “All the Way” (“through the good and lean years and all the in-between years, come what may” and shined navigating the more emotionally complex cautionary tale, the fraught “My Foolish Heart” that goes from worry about what might just be “fascination,” instead of love to the ending where – spoiler alert – caution segues to confidence that “this time it’s love.” Henry O’Donnell quite literally jumped with joy (and added other athletic bends and twists and turns) to a hyperbolic "(Theme from) New York, New York” that might make one suggest he switch to decaf. An eager-beaver/determined-to-entertain energy remained for “All of Me.” All of him might seem a lot of in-your-face brashness to take for some patrons, but the gregarious guy will likely wear them down. The fierce fun a peppy performer is having on stage can be contagious.

Indefatigable Scott Siegel has plenty more tricks and treats up his sleeve with Sinatra sets and up his other sleeve and up next: more cavalcades of Broadway songs and tales.

Messrs. Jones, Winther, Hunt, and Ferolano, return for follow-up editions of Frank Sinatra –The Concert on July 18 and September 1, as well as for six summertime installments of Broadway’s Greatest Hits, along with other performers. The dates and lineup for those shows are here .

For 54 Below's full calendar visit www.54below.org

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/cabaret/article/Review-Scott-Siegel-Honors-a-Legend-in-FRANK-SINATRA-THE-CONCERT-at-54-Below-20260623)._