This is a live bootleg recording made by a fan of a 2009 Toronto Jazz Festival concert at The Old Mill in Toronto by Canadian jazz singer George Evans. Evans returns to his NY cabaret roots in this one hour cabaret-styled performance, featuring songs from the American songbook, jazz, pop, and the theater. The personnel: Mark Kieswetter at the piano, Steve Wallace on bass, and Lee wallace on guitar.

01 She Loves Me

02 You're a Bad Influence on Me

04 This Happy Madness

05 Medley:  I'm All Smiles / The Face I Love / Haven't We Met?

06 I'm in Love Again

07 Just When We're Falling in Love

09 I'd rather leave while I'm in Love

10 patter

11 I Am in Love

12 With So Little to be Sure Of

Live at the Cellar in Vancouver in 2006. These unreleased, unmixed recordings are from the first set.

01 You're gonna hear from me - live

04 When she makes music - live

03 When in Rome - live

05 Don't be that way - live

06 June in January - live

07 Bewitched - live

09 I will wait for you - live

10 To the ends of the earth - live

George Evans: Happy Madness
LIve at the Laurie Beechman Theater
November, 2008   

With his excellent trio, Canadian jazz singer George Evans opened his show last night at the Laurie Beechman Theatre at West Bank Cafe on West 42nd Street with the sprightly title tune from Bock and Harnick's "She Loves Me." It was the bright opener to the first of two shows exploring the challenges, excitement, passion, thrills and obsessions we all experience with love. This particular show was entitled "Happy Madness," and featured songs on the brighter side of love and hypomania. Saturday night's show will be entitled "Glad to Be Unhappy" and will be devoted more to torchy songs, or as he put it "music to slit your wrists to." What fun!

Led by the magical fingers of John diMartino on piano who propelled the evening along majestically, Evans next seduced us with Cole Porter's infrequently heard "You're a Bad Influence on Me," originally sung by Ethel Merman in Red, Hot and Blue in 1936. Not sounding Mermanesque at all, Evans was simply perfect as he got under your skin. As a master ballad singer, he proved it with little doubt with a glorious "'Tis Autumn" (H. Nemo) wherein he wrapped his resonate baritone notes richly around this seasonal standard, in a fantastic arrangement. His Asian bassist and drummer's names unfortunately escape me and he could only pronounce their first names from the stage; however, they were excellent throughout, but especially here. Also fitting the seasonal theme was Jobim's "This Happy Madness" (lyric by Gene Lees) which describes spending October running through Central Park and carving your initials in the bark of every tree. The rhythm was hypnotic.

Returning to the theme of love and its challenges, Kenny Rankin's "Haven't We Met?" (w/ R. Batchelor) was a welcome addition to the set, and the band played a great interlude. Evans also occasionally displayed his talents as a scat singer, very judiciously I might add (so as to not frighten some of you!). A song he said that he has long yearned to sing but had to wait for the right moment, had that moment arrive as he intoned "I'm In Love Again" (Coleman/Lee), beautifully, smoothly and slowly with the drummer providing just a slight beat. Ballads are really Evans' forte, though he can certainly swing when he wants to, as he did when he whipped up "Love Is a Necessary Evil" (Fisher/Segal) to a frantic ending.

"I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love" (P. Allen/C.B. Sager) was sung with strong conviction after an introduction where he described it as one of the few love songs written with a gay man's perspective. This was his sole entry into pop ballads, but a very welcome one because it was done so very well. He ended his manifesto on hypomania with a song which describes the end of the binge: Sondheim's "With So Little to Be Sure Of." It proved to be an excellent wrap. With just piano as the opening accompaniment, you could hear a pin drop as he etched out this great theatre tune using simple dramatic gestures and inflections that to me brought to mind Anthony Newley. And I certainly mean that as a compliment. It was hauntingly beautiful.

The group hadn't planned an encore, (or so it seemed, as they couldn't decide what to play/sing), but the room simply would not let them stay off stage, so he finally returned to send us out with a brilliant reading of "More Than You Know" (Youmans/Eliscu/Rose) that was more than satisfying. We all left knowing a little more about that thing called love and its power over us.

~ Gregg Culling

George Evans (singer)

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