March 27, 2001

One of the better-known compositions of Billy Strayhorn, the Duke Ellington collaborator who has only in recent years emerged from under the master's shadow, is a song called "Passion Flower." That title sums up the extravagantly emotional, exotic jazz impressionism of the composer, who died in 1967. It also describes the sensibility, vocal range and expressive ferocity of Darius de Haas, the Broadway singer who performed an evening of Strayhorn at the Kaplan Penthouse on Thursday evening in the cabaret arm of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.

An astonishing vocal acrobat, Mr. de Haas combines the timbre of a pure wind instrument with a fearless but disciplined theatricality and the swinging authority of a jazz powerhouse. Working with a jazz ensemble led by the pianist Deidre Rodman, Mr. de Haas created a show that transformed familiar and obscure tunes alike into something electrically thrilling.

The Ellington-Strayhorn-Johnny Mercer standard "Satin Doll," typically treated as a routine swing band turn, was lifted off its moorings into slinky, teasing erotic sizzler. "Lush Life," whose opening verse was arranged as a duet for Roy Nathanson's saxophone twirling around Mr. de Haas's voice, became an emotional roller coaster whose curves seemed to be sculptured from inside the body of the song. "Something to Live For," which featured Marvin Sewell's guitar, culminated in poignant cries delivered in a keening head voice. Every gesture seemed informed by the singer's understanding of Strayhorn's compositions as being not simply pop or jazz songs but pliable tone poems that ask to be stretched and flexed for all their colors to be revealed. This extraordinary program (the high point so far in the series) has to be recorded and videotaped, perhaps for PBS's "Great Performances."

July 3, 2002

Darius de Haas has the face of a choirboy and a multicolored voice that spirals from a mellow high baritone through a vibrantly astringent tenor into the piercing falsetto cry of a wounded manchild.

Charged with an impatient eagerness, his singing holds nothing back. Last March this fiery theatrical performer introduced his memorable cabaret tribute to Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's musical right arm, at the Kaplan Penthouse as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. Now that show, retitled "Variations on Strayhorn," can be seen at Arci's Place, where Mr. de Haas is appearing through Saturday with a jazz trio.

"Variations on Strayhorn" is no ordinary cabaret salute but a zealous labor of love in which Mr. de Haas channels the spirit of this composer and arranger, who died in 1967 and whose songs (some written with Ellington and others not) carried jazz composition into an impressionistic Garden of Eden that anticipated the exotic landscapes of Stevie Wonder's pantheistic pop-soul. For this engagement, the musical forces are smaller, the arrangements sparer and the palette not as vivid as before. Yet Mr. de Haas makes the most of an excellent trio that includes Deidre Rodman on piano, Roy Nathanson on saxophone and George Farmer on bass.

Among the high points are a "Lush Life," arranged as a tortured dialogue for voice and saxophone that emphasizes the fiercely defiant self- dramatization of this composer's most famous song, and a "Something to Live For" that builds the lovelorn ballad into an insistently keening gospel-flavored cry to heaven. "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," with its shifting tonal colors, became an entrancing stroll in an enchanted park on a sparkling afternoon. The singer treated Mr. Strayhorn's final composition, "Blood Count," with an original lyric by Elvis Costello, as a deep summary ode to the extravagant aestheticism and tortured yearning that fueled so much of Mr. Strayhorn's music.