Cayabyab and Misalucha: Simply amazing!

Simply amazing describes a night of beautiful music and elegance with Maestro Ryan Cayabyab and diva Lani Misalucha.

On a personal note, An Evening with Lani Misalucha and Ryan Cayabyab under the "Amazing Nights at The Tent" monthly series, sponsored by Smart Communications, Inc., was both a reunion and a discovery for me. The last time I watched Cayabyab was in a concert called Komiks Konsierto with Celeste Legaspi at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It was indeed nice to see and hear him again romance the piano in the same manner as in the days of Ryan, Ryan Musikahan. The roaring laughter and the spontaneity were still there, although he appeared to have grown bigger and his hair whiter.

As for Lani Misalucha, Filipino professionals overseas talk a lot about her, some saying that she should try the Broadway scene. An Evening with Lani Misalucha and Ryan Cayabyab finally ended my ignorance about the much-talked about diva. At last I saw her in person and heard her belt out songs effortlessly and with such elan, where others would have shouted to hit a high note or two. She was comparable to several performers I had seen and heard abroad. I must confess, however, that my exposure to the musical scene is extremely limited to weekend sojourns to BlueNote Tokyo in the Omotesando district in Tokyo, Japan, where artists in the genre of Sergio Mendes, Roberta Flack, Diana Krall, Dianne Reeves, and Nancy Wilson perform from spring to winter, and occasional trips to Manhattan’s Rainbow Room and Lincoln Center.

Armed with his trademark big smile, Cayabyab opened the show with Help Me Make It Through. By the time Misalucha appeared on stage to join Cayabyab, the audience had been properly revved up and eagerly awaiting for the diva. Her first numbers were I’m Gonna and Going Out of My Head. The duo then shifted to a medley of Shaker’s Song and Do You Know (the Way to San Jose?). When the medley ended, the audience had been completely charmed.

Misalucha then segued to The Nearness of You, Somebody Warm Like Me, and You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. These numbers were followed by Kevin Letau’s Sunlight and Orange-Colored Sky.

The love song portion included Cayabyab and Misalucha’s personal favorites, such as And I Love Her, A Certain Sadness, Here’s That Rainy Day, The Trouble with Hello Is Goodbye, Softly, I Don’t Want You to Go, Never My Love, Love Is Stronger Far Than We, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow and It Might Be You. For this segment’s final number, who would not have swooned to their rendition of The Way We Were which easily conjured images of a love-struck Barbra Streisand and an unrequiting Robert Redford.

Cayabyab, at one point, teased members of the audience, who seemed to have been carried away by the performance, humming and singing with them the love songs, and inadvertently revealing how old they were really, hence eliciting guffaws.

When the audience had settled back in their seats, Misalucha gamely said they were open to three requests. Cayabyab and Misalucha obligingly performed the requested songs.

An avalanche of requests kept coming. Misalucha told the waiters in jest they should be serving drinks and food, which were being catered by Le Soufflé, instead of handing her request slips. When one customer even inserted a P500-peso bill in the request slip, Cayabyab said he wanted to keep the P500. That brought the house down.

Cayabyab looked like he genuinely relished the active participation of the audience in shaping the night’s repertoire through the stream of request slips and the audiences’ singing along with them. He even had to stand up and move Misalucha’s music stand as if to prod her to temporarily skip parts of their prepared numbers. The audience applauded him for making the move. It was all impromptu, and the show suddenly looked like a jam session.

"Go with the musical flow" has been one of his mottos. Cayabyab has once said that the "Amazing Nights at The Tent" series "is one of the extensions of what (he does) as a musician… if you are a singer, jamming comes naturally."

Even if the series were to feature singers who are not famous, as long as the audience is appreciative of or receptive to high quality entertainment, it will not be without a following, Cayabyab remarked. "You have to push the quality of the performances to the limits," he said.

"Performing with just a piano is difficult for a singer because there are no other instruments to cover up the flaws, and there are no back up singers," he added.

Mon Isberto, chief of Smart’s public affairs department, said the "Amazing Nights" series is meant to be like an "unplugged" performance, which is to show the talents of the artists with minimal musical accompaniment.

Isberto said the "Amazing Nights at The Tent" is one of the ways for Smart to help keep and support talented artists in the country.

The last segment of the concert had Misalucha singing all-time favorites Say A Little Prayer, Loving You (that sent the audience muttering "Lalalala…"), Iibigin ay Ikaw, Touch Me in the Morning, and Broadway hits, such as The Movie in My Mind, Memory, and Climb Every Mountain.

Bravo! to the performers, and Bravisimo! to the people behind the "Amazing Nights at The Tent."