A shortcut to describing the show business chemistry of Christine Ebersole and Billy Stritch might be to call them, with reservations, the next generation’s Bette Midler and Mel Tormé, two singers you would never think of mentioning in the same breath. This odd couple, who performed together on Friday evening at the Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook, are a longstanding team who have recorded two albums, the second to be released in May.
Ms. Ebersole, a bright, zany soprano and ebullient clown, can whirl on a dime and in a show like “Grey Gardens” evoke an inexpressible sorrow under a facade of garrulous pluck. When she adds a spinning vibrato to her lemony voice, she can turn into a playful latter-day Kathryn Grayson or Jeanette MacDonald, which she began to do on Friday during “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top.”
Mr. Stritch, a pop-jazz pianist, gifted arranger and Liza Minnelli protégé with a photographic musical memory, recently released a solo album, “Billy Stritch Sings Mel Tormé” (Ghostlight), spun off from a one-man tribute show. Although Mr. Stritch’s voice doesn’t drip rounded tonal pearls the way his idol’s does, and Tormé’s machine-gun scat improvisations elude him, he is a solid exponent of the gregarious, swinging Las Vegas style epitomized by Steve Lawrence.
At the first of two shows on Friday the pair alternated between solo turns and pop and jazz standards sung in two-part harmonies. Tempos were brisk. Besides Mr. Stritch on piano, the musicians included Larry Saltzman on guitar, Tom Hubbard on bass and David Meade on drums.
Ms. Ebersole is a superb comic monologuist. Near the beginning of the show she delivered a mischievous reminiscence about growing up in Winnetka Ill., that segued into sharp political comedy worthy of Jon Stewart and Bill Maher before she circled back to her hometown to sing the Bette Midler staple “Big Noise From Winnetka.”
Ms. Ebersole’s performances of “What’ll I Do?,” “Right as the Rain” and “Will You? (from “Grey Gardens”) were bright, crisp and emotionally reticent. Mr. Stritch’s “Too Close for Comfort” and “Lulu’s Back in Town” swung with an easygoing geniality.
Despite all the professionalism on display, the show felt like two programs with competing agendas collapsed into something that was neither this nor that. For anyone who witnessed Ms. Ebersole shoot the moon seven years ago in her New York cabaret comeback at Arci’s Place, now defunct, this great musical-comedy personality appeared frustratingly inhibited.
