Karen Mason: Kander & Ebb… And All That Jazz! continues at the Crazy Coqs, London on 28 April 2025.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Give me partners-in-musicals John Kander and Fred Ebb anytime – they may not enjoy the regal status of Rodgers and Hammerstein but their music is my sort of music. And they’re so much more than Cabaret and Chicago as American cabaret legend Karen Mason dazzlingly demonstrated at the Crazy Coqs on her first UK visit for 12 years.
Tall, cool and elegant in all-white, the stylish Mason got our attention straight away with a sassy ‘All That Jazz’ (gently chiding the audience member who was singing along), but it was material from less familiar shows – and one that never even made the stage – that made this 70-minute tribute, with the excellent Simon Beck on piano, so captivating. Nothing was more poignant than the beautiful ‘A Quiet Thing’ from Flora the Red Menace (Liza Minnelli’s Broadway debut) which rounded off her set so perfectly.
Less familiar was the upbeat ‘I’m One of the Smart Ones’ from the never-seen Golden Gate, Kander and Ebb’s first attempt at a musical after songwriting success, partly due to Barbra Streisand, with ‘My Coloring Book’, a pop ballad that later found a home in the oft-revived K&E revue And the World Goes ’Round.
Which is where Mason came in as she starred in that Off-Broadway production, and got to know lyricist Ebb and composer Kander quite well. “John and Fred were the soundtrack of my life,” she told her audience, “all theatre music was being written for sopranos and that ain’t me! But they were different – they wrote my kind of songs.”
Most of the 1991 revue’s numbers came from lesser-known shows or would appear in future ones. New York resident (but Louisiana born) Mason naturally gave us a rousing ‘New York, New York’ written for Minnelli’s 1977 movie of the same name while distancing herself from the current state of her country, saying “I know, we elected him – twice!”
The song was resurrected for the revue and became famous all over again, along with ‘Maybe This Time’, originally written as a single but woven into the And the World Goes ’Round tapestry and later re-routed to the film version of Cabaret. Mason’s take of that as well as ‘Willkommen’ and a personalised version of ‘Cabaret’ were very much her own and all the more intriguing for that. Another old favourite, ‘Ring Them Bells’, written for the Minnelli TV special Liza with a Z, provided a welcome change of pace in a show that could perhaps have done with a couple of funny Broadway stories. We do love the ‘goss’!
It was bittersweet to hear ‘Love And Love Alone’ from The Visit as that was the last of their 15 shows before Ebb died in 2004 – Kander is still alive and kicking well into his 90s. What eternal magic they created together and what justice Mason did them.
The evening wasn’t all Kander and Ebb – there was a bit of Abba (‘I Believe In Angels’), a bit of Sondheim (‘Broadway Baby’), a bit of Irving Berlin (‘Mr Monotony’) and the title ditty from her disastrous Broadway debut, Play Me a Country Song (definitely not K&E) which closed the same night as it opened, 27 June 1982.
It wasn’t long though until she rose to fame principally through Sunset Boulevard and Mamma Mia! (as Broadway’s original Tanya) and more recently the US tour of Love Never Dies, plus eight albums, one of which I’ve enjoyed for 35 years, up to And All That Jazz, released here last autumn and part of the reason for her visit. Please don’t leave it so long next time, Karen. I’d happily watch you sing the telephone directory.
Jeremy Chapman
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