Find Out Why Cabaret's Brian DeLorenzo is 'The Toast of the Town'

Brian DeLorenzo has been singing professionally in the Boston area for nearly 40 years. The self-proclaimed "cabaret singer" who will "accept the moniker crooner" studied musical theater at SUNY-Fredonia and immediately entered the world of summer stock. Eventually he shifted his focus to singing and has played legendary venues such as Don't Tell Mama, The Metropolitan Room, and Eighty-Eights in New York; Scullers Jazz Club and Club Café in Boston, as well as The Pheasantry Jazz Club in London and The Palm and Incanto in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. He has also performed at the New York Cabaret Convention, the International Cabaret Festival, the Chicago Cabaret Convention, and Provincetown's annual Cabaretfest.

His prior recordings include the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs (MAC) Recording of the Year nominee "Found Treasures," the CD "I Know More Now," and the single "Things Will Get Better," which he wrote and recorded during the pandemic lockdown. His latest album, "Toast of the Town, Volume 1," was released on Friday June 13th. An album release concert will be held on Tuesday June 17th at 7:30pm at Club Café in Boston. For more information, follow this link.

Recently EDGE sat down with Brian as he excitedly prepares for his album release concert to discuss music, his career, and of course his new album, "Toast of the Town, Volume 1."

EDGE: Tell me about your upcoming show.

Brian DeLorenzo: The reason for the show is my latest CD, which was just released on Friday June 13th. It's called "Toast of the Town, Volume 1". It's the first recording I've ever done with a big band; There are 16 instruments and about a dozen musicians on it. I've been working on it for close to 8 years because there was a stoppage in the beginning.

EDGE: What happened?

Brian DeLorenzo: I had hired someone to do arrangements for me, and after a number of months, I think 6 months, nothing was happening. Then this person said that they had some personal issues to deal with, so they dropped out of the project. It took some time to find the new arranger, Tom LaMark. He was really busy at that time so it took a while to get the arrangements done. In the meantime, I had been collecting titles of songs that someday I'd like to record. I finally decided to go into my friend Doug Hammer's studio and record those songs. It became my prior album, "I Know More." It got released in February of 2020 and a CD release was supposed to happen in March. Of course, it got sidelined by Covid. In the meantime, Tommy was working on arrangements and we decided this would be better if I released it in two sets. This one is "Toast of the Town, Volume 1."

EDGE: When will you release Volume 2?

Brian DeLorenzo: Everything's been recorded for both albums, but only the 1st has been mixed. We need to go back into the studio for the mixing. I expect it will be released sometime next year.

EDGE: The album has 16 instruments and 12 musicians. Will you have that big band on the fairly small stage at Club Café?

Brian DeLorenzo: No. We will try to emulate the sound of the full band on the recording, but we will have 8 musicians with me on stage.

EDGE: That's still a lot of people for that stage. Are you afraid you're going to get overpowered by all that music?

Brian DeLorenzo: No. I'll just be physically a little bit cramped and I won't be able to do all the choreography. But that's it.

EDGE: How did you pick the songs for the show?

Brian DeLorenzo: Some of them I've been doing in my shows and in tributes to other singers. I did a Nat King Cole show, a Tony Bennett show, a Sinatra show, and most recently, I did a Sammy Davis Jr. and Sinatra show. A lot of these songs I have been singing at open mics or doing them as part of other shows. Some of them are just fun numbers that I want to include and some I've heard other singers do. For instance, "The Lady from 29 Palms," I don't know if you know that song.

EDGE: I've never heard of it before.

Brian DeLorenzo: Well, Doris Day recorded it. Sinatra recorded it and a whole bunch of other people like The Andrews Sisters did too. There's a couple of interesting things about that song. Its writer, Allie Wrubel, was born in Middletown, CT but at some point moved to the town of Twentynine Palms in California. It's near Palm Springs. He wrote the song in 1947 and ended up spending the rest of his life there. I just learned that he and I share a birthday. (January 15th according to Wikipedia.)

EDGE: Will you perform music from the album at your upcoming release show?

Brian DeLorenzo: Yes, but we'll do some other things too, because the album is eleven cuts and it's not quite enough for a cabaret show. I want to do between 60 and 75 minutes so I'm still in the process of choosing the other material. "The Best is Yet to Come" is the number one track on the CD. It's probably going to be the opening number since it's such a great opening number.

EDGE: That is a great opening number. Anything else you want to give away?

Brian DeLorenzo: Another one on the album is called "My Foolish Heart," which a lot of people sing. I sing the verse. It's something I love to do on my recordings or when I'm performing. A lot of people aren't familiar with them. The famous singers from the Forties and Fifties often didn't record the verses which is why they can be a surprise or something new for the audience.

Sammy Davis Jr. introduced the song "Too Close for Comfort" on Broadway. There's a verse in the sheet music that I've never heard anybody sing or record. I searched for recordings of the song and could not find anybody who recorded this verse. I could be, I don't know this for a fact, but I could be the first person to ever record this verse.

EDGE: You might just find yourself in the history books. Congratulations! What do you think the state of live cabaret music is in general, but especially in your hometown of Boston?

Brian DeLorenzo: It's always been a struggle and pundits will say, it's the end of nightclubs. it's the end of cabaret. the end of the great American Songbook. But we keep raising children who fall in love with all of this. I wish there were more venues in Boston, certainly. but luckily we do have Club Cafe for the open mics in the Napoleon room and cabaret shows in the back room. A lot of us also go to New York to perform at Don't Tell Mama, which I may do with either this album or my Sammy and Sinatra show.

EDGE: Do you ever worry that the Great American Songbook will just fade away into oblivion with subsequent generations?

Brian DeLorenzo: I don't think it will. When I was growing up, I was listening to pop radio, listening to people and bands like the Eagles, ABBA, John Denver, Barry Manilow, Olivia Newton-John, all of this diverse pop in the seventies. When I went to college for musical theater I became entrenched in all the musicals and that's what I sang mostly. But then I started listening to early Barbra Streisand, and she was doing standards as well as pieces that were being written at the time for cabarets and off-Broadway shows. From there I found Ella Fitzgerald, her "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook," I fell in love with that. Gradually I became enamored of the Great American Songbook. Eventually I thought it would be a good idea to put some of these songs into my cabaret show. My first American Songbook Show was in 2003. I did it first in New York, then Boston and New Hampshire. That's when I started performing for this organization I love.

EDGE: What's it called?

Brian DeLorenzo? It's a non-profit called Upstage Lung Cancer that funds research for lung cancer through music. I have been performing with them for 25 years.

EDGE: Do you have a connection with lung cancer that keeps you performing for them?

Brian DeLorenzo: A friend of mine who founded the organization was diagnosed with lung cancer accidentally because she had a fall, and they X-rayed her and discovered that she had a spot on one of her lungs. She felt that she wanted to give something back because she was saved from fully developing lung cancer. And that's been her mission.

EDGE: I noticed you seem to use the terms CD and album interchangeably. Is that intentional?

Brian DeLorenzo: I like the term album, especially for this project because it's sort of mid-century. Its songs from the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties, with one song thrown in from the Seventies that sounds like it could be from that that era. The artwork on the album is kind of mid-century artwork and I love that period of architecture and the feel of nightclubs and all that. This album harkens back to that period. People just don't stay out late anymore like they used to.

EDGE: We live in a different time.

Brian DeLorenzo: When you look back at the Fifties and Sixties, even the Broadway performers would go out after they did a show. They'd stay up until 3 or 4 am at a nightclub listening to other people singing. There was plenty of piano bar entertainment until 4am. I guess maybe we're more responsible now.

EDGE: Older.

Brian DeLorenzo: Older. Yeah. But even the young people don't stay out that late now. And they're even experimenting with non-drinking. We consume entertainment differently. Most of us are watching films at home now, and when we watch TV, we're not watching it as it's broadcast. We'll binge something on Netflix or Paramount+. You don't have that collective thing you had when everybody was in front of the TV at the same time.

EDGE: People don't watch together.

Brian DeLorenzo: Yeah, that's why something like cabaret is needed. It's a way for all of us to be together at the same time. In cabaret and theater people have the same experience and the same emotions together with other people. We have a pretty tight cabaret community in Boston. It's a way for us to get together, especially at the open mics where we eat, drink, support each other and have fun. I think as human beings we need that.

EDGE: What's next after the show and the album?

Brian DeLorenzo: I haven't been thinking that far ahead. I'm sort of saying, "Okay, I have to start thinking about material for after "Toast of the Town, Volume 2" comes out." I haven't really consciously thought about that. But I guess that's in the back of my mind. I always have songs that I would love to sing.

Brian DeLorenzo's latest album, "Toast of the Town, Volume 1," was released on Friday June 13th. For more information about the album, visit Brian's website. An album release concert will be held on Tuesday June 17th at 7:30pm at Club Café in Boston. For tickets and more information about the concert, follow this link.