Jeremy Jordan @ Carnegie Hall - Overview

I wasn't sure if this was the right board to post this on so forgive me in advance if it's deemed 'off topic' but given Jeremy's work on Broadway, thought I would share some observations about a recent engagement.

Attended a very pricey show @ $134 (at least for me) to see Jeremy perform at Carnegie Hall for its opening season. Never saw him sing live but have always been impressed by his vocal chops and camaraderie w the audience so was excited to finally see him in person. Last night I thought it was a mixed bag truth be told.

It felt like a very abbreviated show actually seeing HIM perform. Having never been to Carnegie Hall, I didn't realize a significant portion of the show would include a chunk of solo performances of the Pops Orchestra. They were lovely (esp the Menken Medley) but not what I expected. I thought we'd only hear Jeremy for the evening and he would be accompanied throughout. It wasn't clear from the description online but noted for future reference.

Few other things really irked me about the show. I wasn't familiar w the conductor Steven Reineke who acted as emcee/host. He boasted a number of times about the arrangements he should be credited for and some of the song selections. I thought it was a little grating and he put on too much of a smarmy shtick throughout the night in my opinion. His interaction with Jeremy also felt very awkward and stilted. He definitely has some great rhythm though...I'll give him that!

As for Jeremy...I have to say, the show felt a little underwhelming. I don't know that the setting suited him. The crowd is definitely older (didn't know that either) and I think his interaction and frankly song selection reflected the audience. He sang a medley of Andy Williams songs and they felt tonally off.. I love his singing but I didn't think his voice suited those songs AT ALL which was surprising and disappointing (Moon River, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Mona Lisa, etc). He also forgot the lyrics to the beginning of two songs (uh oh)..."Oh What a Beautiful Morning" and song from a show I never heard of "Moving Too Fast" (it was a terrible choice). First one was a pass...but the 2nd, not very professional tbh.

But the biggest hangup for me is that he bought his wife out for not one medley but TWO. Given the paucity of songs he did sing, I thought it was badly done on their part. Listen, I'm not a a fan of Ashley Spencer. Her voice does not stand out from the legion of some of the middling women in theatre. She was okay and really nice at times but not powerhouse singing for the venue. You especially feel her coming up short at times when she does sing w her husband so I don't know that it helps either of them. They also pitched "casting producers in the audience" while singing a medley of show tunes from musicals they'd love to take a crack at (Come What May from Moulin and Suddenly Seymour were at least two of them). Frankly, if i wanted to see those two perform together, I would have gone to see them at a place like 54 Below. Fine to have a featured guest but I thought bringing on the wife for that period of time was self-serving and and it turned me off.

That said, Jeremy did shine on numbers from West Side Story, Waitress, Smash, Soliloquy from Carousel was particularly spectacular and of course Santa Fe. He sang one original song that was a little mediocre sadly and the anecdote about the song's origin that was a little ridiculous That said...was super stoked to see him finally in person but I am now inclined not to see him again. Bummer.

Huss417 said: "From what you are saying it sounds like he sang a lot."

The medleys he sang were not the entire songs. They were all truncated and the orchestral performances were long. If I knew going into the show there would be sizeable time dedicated to the orchestra, I might have been more prepared.

Thanks for sharing your feedback. It's good to hear another take on the show. I actually didn't dislike him performing some old standards. I guess similar to how you felt about the Soliloquy performance, I'm accustomed to hearing those songs in smooth and buttery tones. Didn't felt like he quite nailed it but it wasn't awful.

Noted on The Last 5 Yrs. I wasn't familiar w the tune and it seemed like not the right pick for him.

I forgot they sang a snippet from Ragtime. Completely agree with you. Moulin definitely seemed like a solid choice for him down the road should they look for a guest run when Aaron departs.

Definitely a lesson learned in terms of the costs, the vibe and expectations. I enjoyed the show for the most part. My son, not so much. He fell asleep during the orchestral pieces. SMH.

I had hoped to see Tituss Burgess perform there in February since I've never heard him perform live either. Tickets are not as expensive as Jeremy's show. Now I'm wondering if I should hold off and see him in a more intimate setting?

You would probably enjoy Jeremy more in a Cabaret setting. At least, a lot of people seem to think so, as he has a 13 show engagement at 54 Below scheduled for February and every show appears to be sold out. I think that you'd catch a lot more of his offhand wit and personality in a small venue.

I went to see Betsy Wolfe at 54 Below over a year ago now. (that was so wrong, it was just last March.) I didn't know much about her singing; her classic blonde good looks were obvious. I like to compare the young actresses, for whom there appear to be not nearly enough roles. Betsy introduced Jeremy Jordan as her guest. They did a minute or so of comic patter and then selected "Suddenly Seymour" as their duet. It was cute, and compared to Carnegie Hall you can see their more subtle personal interactions. There was some stage business with Jeremy pulling a shredded old Kleenex out of his back pocket to offer to Betsy for her eyes.

There was an article "reviewing" this show for BWW (they don't ever pan anything they review), that I had never seen before tonight. As my mother would have said, they were "cute" together.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/cabaret/article/BWW-Review-All-Bets-Were-Off-When-Jeremy-Jordan-Stole-BETSY-WOLFEs-Diary-at-Feinsteins54-Below-20190318

One of the things that I like about 54 Below is that they let you engage in flashless photography. I shot three numbers that night, two by Betsy and the Betsy/Jeremy duet. I probably put them up on YouTube around midnight with no promotion or advertising other than about four keywords. I was unhappy that I didn't know enough about the camera to get the exposure right, and I had washed out a lot of the details of Jeremy's face and Betsy's face and cleavage.

The next afternoon about four p.m. I checked them out. Betsy's videos had 85 views. The Jeremy/Betsy duet had over 4000. So I learned that Jeremy was a Sinatra/David Cassidy teen heartthrob, Maybe someone could help me here. He doesn't have Sinatra's voice or David Cassidy's pretty boy looks.

Meanwhile, here is the video. It is over 21,000, views and 30 comments. Not really a lot by YouTube standards, but probably the most that I'll ever have.

If I just would have been able to charge a dime per view....

Updated On: 10/20/19 at 11:45 PM

"Seriously thought about how Laura Osnes would crush those duets, but Ashley was servicable"

Check out youtube clips of Jeremy Jordan and Laura Osnes together and they are wonderful !!

I have been going to the Pops for years. I was there in the balcony. What you saw is typical New York Pops. Jeremy was the guest artist, but it wasn't his show, it was the New York Pops show. I am sure a lot of the people appreciate the exposition of each piece. These are not necessarily seasoned symphony audience members. This orchestra plays to people who would not otherwise attend classical music orchestras. I think they are a good intro to people who have never been to a symphony before. Steven acted the way he normally does, I can see how he can turn off people. I enjoy his enthusiasm for music.

I was expecting Laura as well, but forgot about his wife. This is true for other concerts that I have been to at Carnegie, solo voices amplified by a microphone don't necessarily travel well all the way up to the balcony. I thought the modern version of Oh What a Beautiful Morning he sang was terrible, some of the notes were changed...I much enjoyed the CITS versions of the songs.

I was going to say what BenjaminNicholas2 and broadfan327 just said. And I will say it still!

The New York Pops is the star of their shows, and a conductor is the lead of his/her orchestra, so that makes Steve Reineke a star of the Pops. He made sure we cheered loudly for the orchestra, deservedly so. A guest performer is a guest performer. What I see is a great rapport between the performer and the conductor, and somehow others interpret that differently, which is fine. You hear a patronizing tone, I see someone trying to make sure he's taking people of all levels along for the ride (there were attendees who know NY Pops but never heard of Jeremy Jordan, there were Jeremy fans young and old who have and have not seen NY Pops, there were invited middle school kids probably seeing their first concert, people who have never been to Carnegie Hall before, etc.).

There was almost 3,000 attendees in the audience.

I like him very much on stage. A charmer. But I confess that, although I think his voice is fine, I don't see what separates it from that of his peers. I guess that they are not exactly peers, but I can't imagine Jeremy in a sing-off with Steven Pasquale of "Soliloquy." But since I have never heard Jeremy sing it, I shouldn't judge.

Bonnie & Clyde was a bust, but the two young stars emerged unscathed. Newsies is one of those shows that I wish I had seen. Now I'm wondering if I should go back and watch Smash. There was a lot of talent in the cast. If it's too much of a Marilyn Monroe story, though, I would probably avoid it. No reason to go back there. I remember the summer day on which her death was announced. My little family was at some resort of little account, and what engaged my 11 or 12 year old mind the most was why she was found naked in bed.

Long before there was the New York Pops there was the Boston Pops, directed by Arthur Fiedler, Major record seller in the 50s and 60s. Evening at Pops was a weekly hour not to be missed in my house. And the format was that of the New York Pops, if not more so. The guest came out to perform once in the first half hour and once in the second half hour. The orchestra closed the show with something snappy. On July 4th on PBS you got not the current disjointed entertainment, but the Pops celebration on the banks of the Charles River. The Pops finished with "Stars and Stripes Forever," and then segued into 1812 Overture, playing the entire piece and not cutting to the part that started the fireworks.

I was about to ramble on about Fiedler and his good friend Leroy Anderson, but I will give you a break. We owe Sleigh Ride to the Pops hit single of the song. I always liked Anderson's short and pithy tracks and I have a double CD collection of them. But even the ones that used to be popular like "The Typewriter" and "The Syncopated Clock" have become pretty forgotten. Oh, there is also "Trumpeter's Lullaby," which high school bands all over the country still use to as a solo for their principal trumpet.

Oh, I should add that my smart Amazon Echo speaker if you ask for Leroy Anderson will go on for several hours without a repeat.

He's no Derek Klena? Meaning Jeremy has five times the followers on social media, has a much more successful career, is much more of a household name, has a huge fan base, and is far wealthier? As long as that's what ya meant, cool.

Barely anyone knows who Derek Klena is except Broadway people.

Updated On: 10/21/19 at 07:30 PM

I had a subscription for two years with great seats: row 5 right orchestra but only a few seats from the left aisle. When I totaled my car in 2017 this became an unaffordable luxury. I always feel a little embarrassed as an older guy being star struck and wanting that personal contact with a celebrity. But I guess it’s common enough. This site is full of veteran theater goers yet stagedooring is a topic brought up a lot. But my two favorite moments as a Pops subscriber involved proximity.

It must have been five years ago that I saw Kelli and Matthew do the Pops holiday show formally at night and informally at dress rehearsal. They didn’t interact with anyone at the dress rehearsal, but we were right down front where we could hear them. Kelli told Matthew that her son wanted a pet rabbit for Christmas. I wanted to warn her off about that. For starters, rabbits knaw away at electrical power cords.

The other was the season opener three years back. Lea Salonga was featured and she spent more time on stage than most. She sang one song without mike. She doesn't have the powerful voice of Audra or Kelli so her volume was lower than with mike, but I loved hearing her pure voice. In the Season Opener Party, which was neither lavish nor cheap. she was alone at the buffet table in her lovely rose gown and I had had a couple of glasses of wine, So I just stepped over to compliment her on the unamplified song. Short chat, then I beat it out of there so as not to overstay my welcome.

Updated On: 10/25/19 at 02:16 PM