(photo: Shara Worden @ Bowery Ballroom, 1/23/10)
Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, now in its thirteenth season, has made a habit of bringing an eclectic group of performers – everyone from cabaret divas to DIY composers – to the gleaming Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, with its dramatic floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Columbus Circle and Park Avenue South. For most of these artists, it's a rare opportunity to have their downtown material heard by a seated, uptown crowd.
But, when Shara Worden made the trip to the Allen Room last week, she decided to take things to a whole other level, writing a full album's worth of new music for the occasion. Wearing a glitrering, puffed-out shirt, she played organ, acoustic guitar and ukulele, backed by local new music group yMusic. And, her operatically-trained voice soared with perfect clarity over the capacity crowd, displaying unbelievable sustain and range.
Shara kicked things up a notch during the second half of the show when she hauled out her Epiphone and the other two members of My Brightest Diamond (Nathan Lithgow, bass and Ted Poor, drums.) During "Freak Out," she brought her own female dancer onstage, possibly to make up for our own collective inability to get up and dance. And, all the while, she sang with all the natural power and force of an Earth mother, wailing and soaring.
We'll see you back uptown again soon, Shara.