Night Clubs Reviews

Aug 6, 2007 - Singer Tony DeSare's Reno debut recalls the Biggest Little City's golden showroom days

By Jack Neal

Young and handsome, the dashing Tony DeSare is also a superb song stylist and jazz pianist. DeSare made his Reno debut Saturday night (8/4/07) at the Peppermill Hotel Casino. Silver Star Productions, in collaboration with the Peppermill, presented the singer in a one-night stand reminiscent of some of the great singers who played the Biggest Little City in its golden days of star entertainment.

Working for the first time with two of Reno’s finest musicians, Tony Savage on drums and Joe McKenna on bass, DeSare sang old songs and new songs, dazzled at the piano, schmoozed and enchanted a near-capacity audience in the Peppermill’s Cypress Room. The Cypress Room itself is one of those nonentity convention spaces some Reno casinos use in lieu of actually building a proper space for classy entertainment and entertainers. Only at the Peppermill, with its extensive use of mirrors amid soft pools of light, brings off its convention-entertainment space with reasonable sophistication and allure.

DeSare’s in-person talent was new to me. The talents of Tony Savage, who has played for and toured with some of the greatest names in entertainment, and Joe McKenna, who is heavily in demand by Americas’s new breed of sophisticated jazz musicians, are well known on the Reno music scene. They work only for the best. I ran into McKenna before the DeSare concert. “He’s the best. Really terrific,” was McKenna’s comment as he made his way backstage.

DeSare is a musician’s musician. He’s also a star in the making who knows just how to handle an audience – what to sing, what to play, what to say. And so it went for 80 minutes of mesmerizing music making, and adroit conversation.

In a program of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, et al, DeSare laced the program with some of his own music. Such as the title song from the movie “My Date With Drew” (“I can’t get along without Drew”), a love song for a young man infatuated with Drew Barrymore who sets off cross country to date the star. The song is as charming as the notion that aiming for the stars, and having it pay off, is what All American Boys do. In an article about botched Academy Award nominations, The Seattle Times listed DeSare’s “My Date With Drew” as a song that should have been nominated (it wasn’t) and should have won.

“The Girl I Love,” from “Finian’s Rainbow” (“If I’m Not Near The Girl I Love, I Love the Girl I’m Near”), was another memorable moment in a concert filled with memorable moments. It’s a with-it young man’s song, and DeSare is just the with-it young man to make it work. Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” from RKO’s 1937 musical, “Shall We Dance,” with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, evoked a time when wonderful tunes and lovely lyrics combined with great stars for a transporting few minutes of glamour and romance.

Tony DeSare is somewhat of a flashback to the stylings of Frank Sinatra. His is a wonderfully liquid sound used with impeccable phrasing, yet without hint of being derivative. Place his velvety singing over an astonishing piano virtuosity and what emerges is America’s newest saloon singing cabaret sensation – Tony DeSare.

Soon up for DeSare, a starring role in a centennial tribute to song writer Harold Arlen (“Over the Rainbow,” “Get Happy,” “The Man That Got Away”). Next up for the Silver Star Productions Cabaret Concert Series is Paula West, September 29 (2007). Tickets are available at tickets.com, or 775-851-1638.