Come to the cabaret

Soft music plays in the background as an eager audience trickles in, filling the Midtown bar lounge on 21st Street with warm conversation and laughter. Sprays of small lights and starlight stencils accent black lights, which drop a bluish hue onto two-dozen crisp white tables. A spotlight rises to reveal a lone stool standing in the center of a stage framed by a black satin backdrop, a baby grand piano and a carefully positioned, waiting microphone.

Jimmy Jordan, a 41-year veteran pianist who has accompanied such performers as Della Reese and Sandi Patty, begins to play the refrain to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” A woman with a sensual, earthy beauty enters in a leopard print shirt, wide-brimmed black Stetson hat, silver drop earrings with turquoise inlay and a silver and turquoise ring that once belonged to actress Hermione Gingold. She takes the microphone and with eyes closed, she raises it to her fiery red lips.

As her rich, powerful voice belts forth with a force that echoes off the far walls of the room, the applause can barely be contained. She takes a moment to look each member of the audience in the eye as she talks, sings and jokes her way through the evening without missing a single beat of music. This evening’s songs include “Memory,” “Lush Life” and “River City,” along with gospel, blues, country, jazz, torch and whatever else strikes her fancy. In between each song, she interacts with the audience as though they were her lifelong friends. To her, they are.

She is Gayiel Von; she is Sacramento’s reigning queen of cabaret. As Jordan sees it, “[She’s] probably one of the most phenomenal vocal talents I’ve ever met.”

A nationally recognized entertainer and voiceover artist, Von leads fans of cabaret back to an era when a lyric and a melody really mattered, and she gives them what they came for: some of the best entertainment in Sacramento. Von is a songwriter and poet who can recount stories about life on the edge into her performances, and she shares personal anecdotes about the many famous and infamous characters she has worked with during her expansive career. Her audiences are encouraged to laugh and cry along with her. Many people do.

Von epitomizes the soul of the cabaret artist; she has an animated style that captivates her audiences at every performance. The range of her voice moves deftly from a lively show tune to a gospel song. She rocks back and forth with hands clapping and tells the audience, “I need some church; help me out,” as she walks between the tables and invites the audience to clap and sing to the African-American spiritual “Wade in the Water.” And her emotional rendition of “I’ve Never Been to Me” triggers applause, even before the song ends.

Von’s sense of humor and classic style weave their way through every part of her act. When she recently broke her arm, instead of taking time away from her cabaret, she requested a bed to be placed onstage from which she would perform with her arm nestled securely in a fashionable sling. With a career spanning over 20 years, Von has an extensive resumé boasting performances with Mel Tormé, Bob Hope, Red Buttons, Milton Berle and Michael Feinstein; she’s also sung at and produced parties for Hugh Hefner, and appeared, fully clothed, on Howard Stern. She is also a series regular on the Nickelodeon show Brothers Flub.

It is Sacramento that now garners much of Von’s attention, however, as she shares her love of cabaret with a city that appears to be thirsting for more.

What we call cabaret began in 19th-century France, developing mostly around the performances of Rodolphe Salis, which led to the style that evolved from the clubs Le Chat Noir and Le Moulin Rouge in Paris’ Montmartre district. Today, says Von, “it’s a dying art form, which is especially needed in these times when people need to connect. That’s what cabaret is about—connecting.”

At times bawdy and irreverent, and at times sensual or even innocent, cabaret cannot be pigeonholed into a singular form of entertainment. It is as rich and varied as the performers who make it happen. “In cabaret, you may hear blues, show tunes, opera, jazz … and later we might have some polka or square dancing,” Von tells her audience lightheartedly.

It isn’t merely the cabaret that allows for diverse styles, but the audience members who are as colorful and varied as the show. “Old, young, black, white, gay, straight, musicians, non-musicians … “ Von says, smiling happily as she looks into her eclectic audience. “… bikers and a man in a pillbox hat. Are there any drag queens here tonight?”

As Von points out, cabaret is intimate in the vaudeville style—with playful, musical interaction between audience and performer. Cabaret celebrates composers and lyricists. Great cabaret artists have the ability to make people laugh and cry; emotion is a part of cabaret.

Cabaret is in Sacramento because Von has and continues to have a vision that local audiences are ready for the cosmopolitan-quality cabaret long offered in such cities as New York and Los Angeles. “Gayiel’s presence, show and passion are the best things that have happened to Sacramento,” pronounces Jan Valente, a big fan of cabaret and self-proclaimed “Gayiel groupie.”

“She not only has an incredible show herself, but has encouraged talent from the area to perform,” adds Betty White, another fan. Other audience members give enthusiastic thumbs-up to having Von and cabaret continue as integral parts of Sacramento’s music and arts scene.

While others laud Von for her many accomplishments, both nationally and locally, she herself sings praises for the wealth of talent she is actively encouraging to flower on stage through cabaret. “Exceptional talent in Sacramento doesn’t have a place to go,” she says. “If somebody is really talented—as a dancer, singer or actor—they usually end up leaving the pool. They leave town. One of my goals is to provide them a place to develop their craft.”

Von has a commitment—a “calling,” as she puts it—to find and develop talent, in addition to creating venues and opportunities for them to present their métier to enthusiastic audiences while offering those audiences the chance to see fresh and gifted entertainers. Like Sarah Price, 21, a talented protégé of Von’s, a trained operatic singer who is a favorite at cabaret. Or Janice Steel, accompanied on the piano by her partner of 11 years, Patricia Gill, who came on the cabaret scene and brought the house down with her bluesy numbers, then showed off her versatility by switching to a bit of country in her act.

Von also supports and highlights women’s music by staging women’s jams. Anyone interested in auditioning with Von for cabaret or the women’s jam is invited to try out at Faces, at 2000 K St., on Wednesday evenings between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Cabaret is held at Club 21, 1119 21st St., on Thursday evenings from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., which makes for a great pre-weekend date that won’t keep the nine-to-five crowd out too late. Those shows don’t include a cover charge, although both clubs will employ one for special, showcased entertainers.

Although Von has been here for only a year, her popularity around Sacramento shows in the demand for her regular performances at other clubs in town. Von also sings the blues at the Torch Club on Sundays at 4 p.m. and performs at the piano bar at Faces on Wednesday and Friday evenings.

Does Von have a vision for cabaret in Sacramento? “[I want people to] see a classy show like the old days,” she says. “People dressing up.”

And now people have that opportunity, every Thursday night.

As the master of ceremonies, played by Joel Grey, quips in the 1972 Bob Fosse film Cabaret: “So. Life is disappointing? Forget it! In here, life is beautiful.”

Come to the cabaret.