New York Cabaret Convention Kicks Off Tonight With A Tribute To Yip Harburg At Jazz At Lincoln Center

Tonight begins the first, full, live and in-person Mabel Mercer Cabaret Convention since 2019, before the pandemic.

The convention is the flagship event of the Mabel Mercer Foundation, a nonprofit established in 1985 “to preserve and advance an endangered part of American musical heritage: the intimate art of cabaret performance and the Great Songbook of its repertoire.” This year convention will be the foundation’s 33rd.

The foundation also offers virtual music presentations and provides outreach to students through American Songbook competitions, master classes, concert tickets and scholarship awards. It is named after Mabel Mercer, who it calls “arguably the supreme cabaret artist of the twentieth century.”

This year’s convention concerts will feature over 75 entertainers and musicians performing at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.

The opening night program will celebrate the music of Yip Harburg, lyricist of ”Over the Rainbow,” among many standards; this will be hosted by Andrea Marcovicci and Jeff Harnar. Tomorrow night’s concert will be a tribute to Nat King Cole, hosted by Natalie Douglas. And Friday night’s concert will be hosted by the foundation’s artistic director, KT Sullivan, and celebrate “timeless American standards.”

Sullivan recently reflected on this week’s live and in-person return of the convention.

“We can’t define it as a ‘comeback,’ for the Mabel Mercer Foundation truly never went away. In 2020 – with all due homage to the artists and technicians who made it possible – four concerts were offered virtually, which won amazing Internet support from the local, national and world-wide ‘regulars’ who usually attended in person. Yet there was also a new, span-the-globe contingent of devotees, who also accepted the invitation to ‘tune in.’ Even better, they returned on succeeding evenings and have remained – ever since – to exult over the Great Popular Songbook and those who perform it.

“Last year, with so much care that still needed to be taken, we did two more virtual concerts and just one evening at the Rose Theater. Now it’s going to be like Coming Home Again to be onstage there. And I’m especially proud of the fact that roughly a quarter of those on our 2022 roster are making their CabCon debuts,” she concluded.