Frankie Moreno adds dates to already-stacked Cabaret Jazz schedule

By John Katsilometes

Tuesday, June 2, 2015 | 7 p.m.

Somewhere in the midst of Beatles Night, or James Brown Night, or maybe Mozart Night, or possibly Jerry Lee Lewis Night, Myron Martin said, “We need to keep this going.”

Consequently, Frankie Moreno’s run at Cabaret Jazz in the Smith Center will roll on. The added dates are Tuesday nights from July 14 through Sept. 29, with “out” dates July 28 and Aug. 4.

“It was easy,” Martin said today when talking of extending Moreno’s residency at the Smith Center. “We’re in the 12th week of 13 weeks, and he’s sold out every performance. He has a great fan base who loves coming here. He and the band love coming here for the acoustics and vibe of the room. Why not?”

In an impressive, often staggering series of performances, Moreno and his backing band have learned and played a unique show each week. Every show is a tribute to a different artist or genre, so we have seen nights focusing on “crooners” (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin and the like), The Beatles, Motown, '50s artists and, yes, Mozart — complete with a 30-piece orchestra.

In all, Moreno and his band will have recharted and learned to play about 200 songs just for this series. They have not used sheet music, memorizing all these songs, and playing them on these individual nights (the current run closes June 9).

Expect that approach to change, however, when Moreno returns in July. The specialized nights are to remain, or even shows with a mixed bag of songs, but learning new songs from a specific artist — be it The Beach Boys, The Doors or The Bay City Rollers — is not in the offing.

Still, as Martin says, “Learning all these songs week after week after week is great for the band, great for their musicianship and great for fans to hear such a broad range of music.” He added, “Of course, it’s great for the Smith Center to have a full room on Tuesday nights. Normally, I would be OK with Cabaret Jazz being dark on Tuesday, but when you can bring Frankie in on Tuesdays … it’s great for us.”

As for how long the Smith Center will continue to host Moreno, Martin says, “We’ll keep him for as long as we can, but I feel that he’ll be at a major Vegas resort eventually, and I’ll be the first to tell any of them the value of having Frankie Moreno play night after night after night at their casino.”

Cabaret Jazz has become a destination for some of the city’s top live acts, starting with resident headliner Clint Holmes, who also changes his performances each month during his three-show sprees. Lon Bronson’s All-Star Band and David Perrico’s Pop Evolution show band have been top draws at Cab Jazz. And Jerry Lopez of Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns, who continue to fill Lounge at the Palms, has recently said he would be amenable to playing the room, too.

“There is not a cabaret space in America that is doing as much great stuff as we are,” Martin said. “I’m not boasting. It’s just true. If you look at all of the Las Vegas acts we’ve had here, the Composers Showcase and the weekend touring acts who have played here, it’s really impressive.”

As for Moreno, he has been especially busy lately, playing a high volume of one-off shows all over the country. He’ll be at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on Friday and Saturday in another performance of “Let’s Be Frank: A Tribute to Frank Sinatra.” This is the production and set of singers who played Carnegie Hall in March, with Moreno joined by Tony DeSare, Ryan Silverman and Storm Large in the Sinatra tribute. Backing that group is the National Symphony Orchestra Pops ensemble.

And, in one of the more memorable events in recent memory, on Saturday night Moreno played a show at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium in Los Angeles. This was as the featured entertainment at a conference titled, “In the Year 2325: Big Science, Big History, and the Far Future of Humanity,” for which one of the featured speakers was evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins. Moreno played the hall, which was jammed with attendees, after the conference concluded.

One of those in the audience was Johnny Depp, who met with Moreno and his brothers Ricky and Tony after the show. Now Depp and Moreno are emailing.

You really never know …

“It’s an up-and-down business,” Moreno says. “We’re up right now, and you just have to enjoy it and keep working hard to stay there.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.