Burt Bacharach wrote over 1,000 songs — a stunning list of hits ranging from “A House is Not a Home” to “What the World Needs Now” to “Anyone Who Had a Heart” — serving as a one-man bridge between the golden age of the American songbook to those who penned its more contemporary pages. The top-drawer new revue at the Apollo Theater, direct from off-Broadway, can’t pack in all 1,000 songs, but it does cover the Bacharach waterfront with a bevy of creative and fresh arrangements, collectively an exceptional tribute to one of the greatest songwriters of the middle and late 20th century.
“Going Bacharach: The Songs of an Icon” is a fabulous and deliciously glamorous little show that deserves to sell out the Apollo, sadly not the case at its first official performance on Thursday night. This Lincoln Park theater by the “L” tracks has mostly been dark in recent years; perhaps folks have gotten out of the habit of going there. But if you’re a fan of the Bacharach oeuvre, and anyone who loves popular music or jazz must be in that category, given his gorgeous tunes and his compositional variety, this intimate experience is absolutely not to be missed.
Here’s why. One of the three vocalists here is John Pagano, who toured with Bacharach around the world for more than 25 years; to say he knows his way around this body of work is to understate. Another, specializing here in the many hits that Bacharach wrote for Dionne Warwick, is Ta-Tynisa Wilson, a Broadway “Hamilton” alum. A third is the superb jazz singer Hilary Kole (the daughter of Robert Kole), who has a big following at New York’s Rainbow Room. All are under the direction of David Zippel, who wrote the lyrics to “The Goodbye Girl” and “City of Angels” and who was sitting in the back of the Apollo on Thursday night, alas with a row of seats mostly to himself.
That’s the calibre of artists working here; I’ve been in New York attending Broadway shows all this past week, watching young singers belt or camp it up, which has its appeal, but I cannot overstate the pleasures of returning to Chicago to hear the subtle interpretations of Bacharach songs like “Alfie” or “Close to You” from consummate professionals.
That includes here the fabulous jazz pianist and conductor Adrian Galante, a breakout young Australian equally as adept on the clarinet and an ebullient specialist in this genre of music. He’s not only a skilled player and arranger, he keeps everything alive.
To be clear about what you will be buying: this is a two-act revue of Bacharach’s songs. (Aside from Galante, who is very much front at center, there is a perfectly sized jazz quartet at the rear.) The songs are contextualized a little and, among other gentle pleasures, Kole and Galante explore a little of the structural complexity of Bacharach’s constantly shape-shifting music, an outlier among pop compositions and indicative of the composer’s technical genius.
This body of work crosses genres, of course. Bacharach wrote lyrics to countless movies (such as “The Goodbye Girl”), Broadway shows (“Promises, Promises” being just one), pop standards for the likes of Tom Jones, Andy Williams, Perry Como and Dusty Springfield, and what you would most accurately call jazz or R&B ballads. Some of it has been looked down upon as yacht rock (Pagano sings the Christopher Cross hit “Arthur’s Theme: The Best That You Can Do”), but really only by the jealous.
The reader will detect I am a Bacharach fan of long standing. Fellow devotees should not miss this glam, affordable, old-school night out on Chicago’s North Side, celebrating live music demanding sophisticated interpretation — increasingly a rarity, alas, in our toddlin’ town.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Going Bacharach: The Songs of an Icon” (4 stars)
When: Through May 17
Where: Apollo Theatre, 2250 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 2 hours
Tickets: $49-$99 at goingbacharach.com
