Melissa Errico’s new Valentine residency 2025 is a collection of standards that are not standard. Though many of the songs are familiar, even classics, they become intimate conversations and private reflections on romance & desire. 

 

Accompanied by a jazz trio led by jazz pianist Andy Ezrin, Melissa returns to Birdland for her third annual Valentine’s residency, ready to whisper & swing her romantic secrets and illusions. 

 

Songs by Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Joni Mitchell, David Shire & Adam Gopnik, Dave Frishberg, Patricia Barber, Scott Frankel & more. In her most introspective, secretive, & sensual show yet, titles move from “Lost in His Arms” and “Why Did I Choose You?” — to “But, Beautiful”, and the sweetly erotic – “Dancing On the Ceiling.” Has any lyric ever been sexier than the incomparable Larry Hart’s fantasy:

“She dances overhead/on the ceiling/near my bed/in my sight/through the night.” 

 

There are moons and Junes in these songs, but reality too.

The words, like the music, like the lady, float. They float still.

When Melissa sings a classic, it isn’t a torch song. It’s more of a …searchlight. 

 

The songs taken as a found ‘cycle’ may still, however, point a path, paint a little picture. A love story made of sighs and secrets rather than neat happy endings. A series of evasions and implications. Love as an obstacle course run by adults rather than meadows measured by children. Spring will be a little late this year. Only a little, but that’s enough.