Christine Andreas

Rex Reed

New York Observer

April 9, 2001
Young enough to be a Clooney or Whiting granddaughter, Christine Andreas graces the Cafe Carlyle with the same kind of elegance and sophistication. Billed as a celebration of the great ladies of Broadway, her polished new act encompasses everything from Mary Martin’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” to Ethel Merman’s “Some People,” but she finds her own unique style on each selection. Coaxing, cuddling and cunning, she has the training and talent to mold and shape her voice into myriad characters without imitation. Her impressive range and gently modulated vibrato could easily be pitched to the second balcony, but she’s developed an intimacy so stunningly enriched by the jazzy chords of pianist Lee Musiker that she sounds mellow and soothing even when she hits high E’s.

The knockout is Jerry Herman’s showstopping “If He Walked Into My Life.” She doesn’t croon it like Eydie Gorme or perform it the way Angela Lansbury did in Mame, as an anthem for an older woman about a child who has outgrown her love. Ms. Andreas turns it into a first-class torch song, articulating every syllable, tearing it into little shreds of Kleenex. Lovely to look at, delightful to hear. Dorothy Fields might even rewrite her own lyric to that famous Jerome Kern song if she were around today to hear Christine Andreas.