Elliot Zwiebach was 62 years old when he sang in front of a live audience for the first time.<\/p>\n
The retired reporter had always loved show tunes, but he\u2019d never considered singing in public before. <\/p>\n
\u201cI sang for my own amusement, and I wasn\u2019t very amused,\u201d he said recently.<\/p>\n
But one night, after attending a few open mic nights at the Gardenia Supper Club in West Hollywood as a spectator, he got up the nerve to step onto the stage and perform a tune backed by a live band.<\/p>\n
For his first song, he picked the humorous \u201cHoney Bun\u201d from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical \u201cSouth Pacific.\u201d It was frightening and he didn\u2019t sing well. And yet, the following week he came back and did it again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Newbie Ian Douglas, left, and longtime singer Elliot Zwiebach look over a sign-up sheet at the Gardenia\u2019s long-running open mic night. <\/p>\n
Sixteen years later, Zwiebach, now 78, is a core member of what the event\u2019s longtime host Keri Kelsey calls \u201cthe family,\u201d a group of roughly 25 regulars who sing jazz standards, show tunes and other numbers from the Great American Songbook at the longest-running open mic night in L.A.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very much like a community,\u201d Zwiebach said on a recent evening as he prepared to sing \u201cThis Nearly Was Mine,\u201d another song from \u201cSouth Pacific.\u201d \u201cEveryone knows everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 25 years, the small, L-shaped Gardenia room on Santa Monica Boulevard has served as a musical home for a diverse group of would-be jazz and cabaret singers. Each Tuesday night, elementary school teachers, acting coaches, retired psychoanalysts, arts publicists and the occasional celebrity pay an $8 cover to perform in front of an audience that knows firsthand just how terrifying it can be to stand before even a small crowd with nothing more than a microphone in your hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are so vulnerable up there with everyone staring at you,\u201d said Kelsey, who has hosted the open mic night for 24 years and once watched Molly Ringwald nervously take the stage. \u201cBut it\u2019s also the most joyous experience in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Director and acting coach Kenshaka Ali sings \u201cGoodbye Pork Pie Hat\u201d by Rahsaan Roland Kirk.<\/p>\n
The singers are backed by a live, three-piece band led by guitarist Dori Amarilio. The rotating group of musicians \u2014 a few of them Grammy winners \u2014 arrive not knowing what they will be playing that night. Some singers bring sheet music, others chord charts. And there are those who just hum a few bars and allow the musicians to intuit the key and melody enough to follow along. Poet Judy Barrat, a regular attendee, usually hands the evening\u2019s piano player a copy of the poem she\u2019ll be reading and asks him to improv along with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s totally freeform,\u201d said Andy Langham, a jazz pianist who toured with Natalie Cole and Christopher Cross and often plays the Gardenia. \u201cI read the stanzas and try to paint pictures with the notes.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Keri Kelsey, singing \u201cMack the Knife,\u201d has hosted the Gardenia\u2019s open mic night for 24 years. <\/p>\n
The Gardenia, which opened in 1981, is one of the few venues in L.A. specifically designed for the intimacy of cabaret. The small, spare room has table service seating for just over 60 patrons and a stage area beautifully lit by an abundance of canned lights. Doors open at 7 p.m. on Tuesday nights, but those in the know line up outside the building\u2019s nondescript exterior as early as 6 p.m. to ensure a reasonable spot on the night\u2019s roster of singers. (Even though there is a one-song-per-person limit, the night has been known to stretch past 12 a.m.) Nichole Rice, who manages the Gardenia, takes dinner and drink orders until the show starts at 8:30 p.m. Then the room falls into respectful silence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pianist Andy Langham and guitarist Dori Amarilio perform live music accompaniment for each open mic participant at the Gardenia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a listening room,\u201d said singer-songwriter Steve Brock, who has been attending the open mic night for more than a decade. \u201cI\u2019ve been to other rooms where I\u2019m competing with tequila or the Rams. Here, when anyone goes up in front of that microphone, everyone stops.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a recent Tuesday night, the show began as it always does with an instrumental song by the band (a piano, guitar and upright bass) before an opening number by Kelsey. Dressed in a black leather dress and knee-high boots, she had this time prepared \u201cMack the Knife.\u201d \u201cThis may be one of the loungiest lounge songs ever,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s why I really like it.\u201d <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
People begin to line up outside the Gardenia at 6 p.m. to get a spot for the Tuesday open mic night.<\/p>\n
The first singer to take the stage was Trip Kennedy, a bearded masseuse who performed \u201cThe Rainbow Connection\u201d in a sweet tenor. When he finished, Kelsey shared that she was cast as an extra in \u201cThe Muppets Take Manhattan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the most ridiculous thing,\u201d she said, filling time as the next singer consulted quietly with the band. \u201cI was a college student who dressed up as a college student for the audition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dolores Scozzesi, who sang at the Hollywood Improv in the \u201980s between comedy sets, performed a moody arrangement of \u201cWhat Now My Love.\u201d \u201cThis is a [chord] chart from 2011,\u201d she told the audience before she began. \u201cI want to try it because these guys are the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Monica Doby Davis, an elementary school teacher, sings the jazz standard \u201cYou Go to My Head\u201d at the Gardenia. <\/p>\n
Zwiebach performed a medley of two Broadway hits, \u201cI\u2019ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face\u201d (which he altered to \u201chis face\u201d) and \u201cThis Nearly Was Mine,\u201d easily hitting all the notes. After, his young friend Ian Douglas, a relative newbie who started attending the open mic night in the spring, sang the jazz standard \u201cYou Go to My Head.\u201d Zwiebach praised the performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that song very well and you did a great job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Monica Doby Davis, who once sang with the \u201990s R&B girl group Brownstone and now works as an elementary school teacher, also performed \u201cYou Go to My Head.\u201d Although she had left the entertainment business decades ago, she said finding the Gardenia open mic night 13 years ago \u201cbrought music back to my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tom Nobles, left, sings alongside bassist Adam Cohen, center, and pianist Andy Langham at the Gardenia. <\/p>\n
There were many beautiful, intimate moments that night, but perhaps the best was when Tom Nobles, an actor and retired psychoanalyst in a purple knit cap and thick plastic glasses, forgot the words to \u201cLost in the Masquerade\u201d by George Benson. <\/p>\n
He stumbled for a moment, a bit perplexed, before turning to his friends for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever knows the words, sing it with me,\u201d Nobles said to the crowd.<\/p>\n
Quietly at first and then louder and stronger, the whole room broke out into song.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re lost in a masquerade. Woohoo, the masquerade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elliot Zwiebach was 62 years old when he sang in front of a live audience for the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[22924,22927,9831,15722,22928,7244,11394,48,52,51,22925,47,50,49,22923,22930,22929,7091,3239,22926,72],"class_list":["post-31422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-elliot-zwiebach","tag-first-song","tag-first-time","tag-front","tag-gardenia","tag-group","tag-kelsey","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-live-band","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-open-mic-night","tag-piano-player","tag-show-tune","tag-singer","tag-stage","tag-tuesday-night","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}