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Frankie & Tony is an art band that uses the form to reveal an revel in personae based on a distant, near-extinct Americana. At the performance of their "Duo on eVogue" at The Project, L.A., the five handsome men from Zurich in sharkshin and tuxes, some with tinted sunglasses and painted-gray hair, played three sets from a repertoire of standards. The band gleefully used the stage as a way of reifying their Martini-soaked casino act. Frankie & Tony strike the Rat Pack pose. Led by blue-eyed Frankie, a suave Sinatra impersonator who is supposed to be a Sinatra impersonator, and swarthy Hermeto zé Maria, a Latin crooner with a pretty falsetto, the singers are backed by saxophonist Charles "the fish" Fish and Tony Carbone on electric organ supplying pre-programmed samba beats. The two men harmonize schmaltzily on "The Girl from Ipanema", "That's Amore" and "New York, New York". They get the melodies right, through the late Fred Ebb would take exception to the accented singers' freewheeling way with the lyrics. No worries: the real Sinatra messed the words up too, and anyway, Hermeto, in unbuttoned shirt, wears fake chest hair and a pencil mustache. The expository banter, in English, German, Spanish, whatever, clues the audience into a fictious backstory...Alex Segade, ArtUS, July-September 2005 |
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