SPENCER DAY at the Hudson Opera House Carole Osterink ccSCOOP Editor I’m not a great fan of show tunes. I’ve never heard Michael Feinstein perform. I’m not sure who Harry Connick, Jr., is. So, on Friday night, I felt ill-qualified even to be in the audience in the West Room of the Hudson Opera House to hear an evening of cabaret with Spencer Day, much less to be there for the purpose of writing a review of the performance. Spencer Day opened the show with what I have since learned is his most popular song, “Movie of Your Life”—most popular and most critically acclaimed, since it was named best original song by the San Francisco Academy of Art University in 2005.

The song’s conceit was intriguing, its lyrics engaging, and the melody appealing, but, at the beginning of the concert, it was Day’s between-songs remarks to the audience that engaged me most. He started out by telling us how much he loved Hudson, how he’d spent the afternoon walking the length of Warren Street, how he’d gotten a haircut at the salon Mane Street. Partial to those who admire things that I hold dear, I was on my way to being smitten. A little later he told us he was from Utah, which presented a bit of a problem because from then on I found it hard not to imagine him sitting at the piano with the backpack of a Mormon missionary on his back. His appearance is that wholesome and earnest.  

Warming to Spencer Day’s engaging personality and thoroughly enjoying the interplay of his voice with the piano and the cello, I still had the unsettled feeling of not quite knowing what I was listening to. Spencer Day’s music is described as a blend of jazz, pop, soul, and folk. Was I so illiterate when it came to non-classical music that nothing I heard resonated with anything I could ever remember hearing before?

Then I heard it: a lyrical phrase partnering cello and voice that evoked Simon and Garfunkel. I felt like Mole in The Wind in the Willows when he catches on the air the familiar scent of home. That phrase turned out to be a subtle—perhaps even unintentional—segue to Day’s next song: Paul Simon’s “American Tune.” Familiar as the song is to me, Day’s dusky baritone made it seem slightly strange and new.

It turned out that “American Tune” was the only song in the entire evening that was not an original Spencer Day composition, but after that, the lack of familiarity seemed more comfortable. In both his lyrics and his comments to the audience, Day was revealing himself to his listeners and making them his friends. There was a trio of songs that he introduced by saying they were songs for “anyone who had to run away to find out who they were.” There were two songs that displayed his sense of humor: a song about Marie Antoinette, which he suggested might be called “Versailles, 90210,” and a love song for a state for which no love song has ever been written, “Last Train to New Jersey.” 

The songs were from Spencer Day’s new CD, Vagabond. A friend who had heard one of his earlier CDs described it as having “full orchestral background.” Although I’m not familiar with any of his CDs, I somehow cannot imagine the songs performed in any way other than they were on Friday night: Spencer Day accompanying himself on the piano, with Yair Evnine playing the cello for some songs, the guitar for others, and occasionally providing vocal harmony. It was, to my mind, simple perfection.

A review that appeared earlier this year in the San Francisco Chronicle speculated that Spencer Day might be more famous if he simply “applied that brandy-flavored baritone to the usual cabaret standards.” The friend who accompanied me to the concert made an observation that seemed to support that opinion. She remarked that it was challenging to listen to so many songs that were unfamiliar. I can attest to the truth of that, but I also have to say that if Spencer Day had performed a set of familiar songs—songs whose melodies I knew and whose lyrics I had internalized—I would have left the concert having thoroughly enjoyed the experience and that would be that. As it was, I found myself in the Center Hall of the opera house, shaking Spencer Day’s hand and telling him, with heartfelt sincerity, how much I enjoyed his work—meaning not just his performance but his lyrics, his compositions, his arrangements, and the quest for self-discovery that is at the heart of so many of his songs. I had become a fan.

Chatting after the concert, Day remarked how much he, born in Utah and now living in LA, enjoyed the Northeast—particularly the Berkshires, where he’d performed at Tanglewood at the invitation of Marian McPartland, and Columbia County. He said he wanted to come back and rent a place here and spend his time writing. I sincerely hope he does. I look forward to the privilege of hearing him perform his work again.