It could have been a scene aboard the deck of the Titanic –before that pesky iceberg hit.
As the live band performed tunes from the early 1900s,couples swing danced on the black-and-white checkered floor of an elegant artdeco venue. In between songs, Cherry Tartes, burlesque strippers dressed inskimpy raincoats, strategically folded and unfurled their umbrellas to reveal,conceal and tease the supper club crowd.
While it may have felt like the turn of the 20th century,the supper club was in the Fenix Room of the Argyle Hotel on Sunset Boulevard.
In the center of it all was the self-proclaimed “ukulelechanteuse” Janet Klein — a svelte woman with bright eyes, a brunette bob and along gown that might place her as a contemporary of Theda Bara and Clara Bow.On a winter Monday night, she belted out vintage numbers such as “HollywoodParty,” “You Keep Me Living in Sin” and “Nasty Man,” with her backup band, TheParlor Boys.
“I like to say that I was born in 1908,” said Klein, whocoyly describes her age as “30-ish.”
Born sometime after that in Los Angeles, Klein grew up inthe San Bernadino foothills, with her parents, UCLA-educated educators with anEastern European heritage.
“I always thought I had the soul of an old lady,” Kleinsaid. “I was always very close to the older people in my family. I loved thestuff they had in their houses.”
Klein’s ancestors were Polish leather-workers, and she hasheld on to their handmade, knitted, sequined gowns.
“I had a vision of me in a long gown with a candelabra,”said Klein, who now dresses in these family heirlooms when she performs.
Even as a teen attending Pacific High School and TempleEmanuel, Klein cherished the 1910s, ’20s and ’30s.
“This period has been poorly stereotyped,” said Klein of thedecade maligned by visions of Betty Boop and the Charleston, when, in reality,”it’s blessed by some of the greatest ever music produced by immigrants andblacks.”
Brad Kay, the Parlor Boy on piano and coronet who hooked upwith Klein in 1998, agrees that there is relatively little appreciation for themusic.
“Our tendency in our culture to completely trash the past,”Kay said. “Americans especially are prone to dismiss anything that’s older than20 minutes, which is completely opposite of the rest of the world.”
A trained classical pianist, Klein first picked up theukulele in 1995. Within months, she went up to Santa Cruz to patronize a notedluthier, who created Klein’s customized black lacquer ukulele — adorned withcherry blossoms, a “Coeur de Jeanette” logo mugged from a French cologne labeland birdseed fret marks.
Lori Brooks, who works at Hi De Ho Comics in Santa Monica,brought down the staff of her shop to the Argyle show. She also caught Klein atFais Do Do in November when a building code violation bust — teeming withpeople dressed in period clothing — enhanced that evening’s allure.
“It really had this 1920s Prohibition feel to it,” saidBrooks, 24. “At the strike of midnight, the fire department showed up. Thebartenders was quickly getting out of there. It seemed like all of LAPD was outthere.”
Klein finds the vaudeville-era tunes, a lot of them writtenby Jewish songwriters, “lively and clever and heartwarming.”
Parlor Boys’ ukulele and accordion player, Ian Whitcomb(whose “You Turn Me On” was a pop hit during the British Invasion), observedthat Tin Pan Alley was a natural outlet for the East European Jews passingthrough Ellis Island.
“The professions, such as banking, were closed to them,”said Whitcomb, who recently scored Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Cat’s Meow.” “Sothey entered rogue businesses, such as cinema and Tin Pan Alley.”
These Jews developed an ear for the genre’s urbanvernacular, he said. “Being outsiders, they could see American mass culturemuch more objectively….In a way we can thank the czars for the pogroms [thatchased from Russia] Al Jolson, the Gershwins, Irving Berlin and the like.”
Klein even tosses Jewish numbers into her sets, such as”Yiddish Hula Boy” and “Rebecca from Mecca.”
“Yiddish gives me a kick,” she said.
Kay said Klein excels at what she does because “she hasgreat respect for this music.”
“It’s not kitsch to any of us,” he continued. “It’s justmusic.”
Janet Klein will perform at McCabe’s on Feb. 7; at the Silent Movie Theatre on Feb. 14 ; and at the Argyle Hotel on March 3. For information, visit www.silentmovietheatre.com or www.janetklein.com . p>
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