Something Scintillating by Linh
Operatic soprano, cabaret/jazz/burlesque performer Ali McGregor is a frequent visitor to Adelaide, bringing her shows to the Adelaide Cabaret and Fringe Festivals in the past. After her critically-acclaimed show Jazz Cigarettes, Ali McGregor returns to Adelaide with her latest concoction of Something Old, Something New. McGregor could only squeeze in a weekend of two matinee performances due to her hectic schedule being a mum to her baby girl and currently is in the middle of rehearsals for the operetta The Merry Widow.
In McGregor’s sold-out show Jazz Cigarettes she was smoking hot, but in Something Old, Something New she is scintillating. Her show brings together some popular jazz standards with mash-ups of contemporary pop songs and blues. Between songs, Ali would engage with the audience in her current frustrations about being unprepared for the unusual wet weather in Adelaide, her love of blues singers such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington and her childhood interpretations of songs which now, as an adult, still has a long-lasting effect on her.
McGregor’s opening number The Man I Love, is delivered with titillating sensuousness and could be a heartfelt dedication to her husband and comedian/presenter Adam Hills (who is stuck inside a hotel room nursing a dreadful cold), while her next song is a jazzed-up homage to Soft Cell’s hit Tainted Love. McGregor dedicated Little Girl Blues by Nina Simone, to her little girl, delivering the song with soothingly smooth vocals and tenderness.
Other highlights of her show include a Santana-inspired rendition of Madonna’s single La Isla Bonita; a wildly outrageous and sexed-up rendition of Britney Spears’ Oops I Did It Again; I Was Made For Loving You by Kiss gets the blues treatment, and a fantastic mash-up combining Fly Me To The Moon with Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive.
McGregor was superbly supported by a trio of masterful musicians, with Matthew Carey on the piano, lovely Alana Dawes keeping the harmonies flowing on the double bass and Barnabas Smith held the rhythm and beats on percussion/drums. Although this was a matinee show, there were still some younger audience members who enjoyed most of the eclectic range of songs. Something Old, Something New is another showcase for the wonderful vocals of the talented and gorgeous Ali McGregor who will soon be completing her album Jazz Cigarettes in the next few months.
The season for Something Old, Something New has concluded.
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