Daryl Sherman Delivers the Songs in Upbeat Style

About halfway through her opening set at the Jazz Bakery Monday night, singer-pianist Daryl Sherman dug into the high-spirited lyrics of “The Feeling Too Good Today Blues.” The tune--a lesser-known gem from the Lieber & Stoller catalog--provided a perfect theme for the evening (doubly so since Mike Stoller was in the audience).

Sherman, who prefers to describe herself as a jazz cabaret artist, is a performer who seems to find the optimistic center of everything she sings. Even wistful numbers such as Arthur Hamilton’s “Cry Me a River” and Henry Nemo’s “Don’t Take Your Love From Me” emerged, in Sherman’s renderings, as tales of love affairs that just might manage to have a happy ending, after all.

More upbeat (and offbeat) material--Noel Coward’s “Chase Me Charlie,” Duke Ellington’s “It’s Always Swingtime in Honolulu,” Youmans and Kahn’s “Flying Down to Rio”--was done in even more high-spirited fashion, with Sherman’s high, sweet voice strongly supported by her own swing-styled piano playing, the guitar of Ron Eschete and the bass of John Leitham.

But it would be wrong to suggest that Sherman’s singing was merely the product of a superficial, saccharine soprano with a very good ear. Songwriters love her for a reason. Like her acknowledged musical mentor, Mildred Bailey, she believes in steering clear of excessive theatricality, delivering a song with a clear articulation of the lyrics, an understanding of its story and a solid rhythmic undercurrent.

Not especially impacted by the dominant, postwar influences of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, Sherman draws her inspiration from the pre-bop era that encompassed New Orleans, stride and swing, an era in which musical creativity went hand-in-hand with the need to entertain and communicate.

She managed to do both at the Bakery, much to the delight of an enthusiastic crowd. It’s no wonder that she is so highly regarded by fans of the Great American Songbook.