A Pink Martini Cabaret

Due to the unnerving persistence of the coronavirus, holiday parties have taken a hit this season, but thanks to UCSB Arts & Lectures, one of Santa Barbara’s very best winter solstice traditions will continue, albeit in a virtual format. Lots of great December memories have been formed over the years around Pink Martini’s annual appearances at the Arlington. There’s always a special feeling on these occasions — people dress up, there are decorations on the State Street tree, and friends come out to eat, drink, and enjoy one another’s company on the way to the show. Although that can’t happen this year, Arts & Lectures has seen to it that we can have the next best thing. On Thursday, December 10, at 5 p.m., Pink Martini founding members China Forbes and Thomas Lauderdale will dish up a cabaret version of their show online, replete with songs in multiple languages, acknowledgements of the end of an unforgettable year, and plenty of their trademark musical wit and glamour.  

If you’re already a fan of Pink Martini, then you know that these two performers are the band’s heart and soul. Lauderdale’s comprehensive knowledge of musical genres complements Forbes’s steely focus on the precision of a lyric, and the results can stand comparison with the work of their idols. “Sympathique (Je ne veux pas travailler)” for example, their first international hit, sounds as familiar on first hearing as anything by Edith Piaf, and the self-aware syncopation of “Hey Eugene!” from their third album is as irresistible as Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.” Yet Lauderdale and Forbes are no mere imitators; for proof that they are on a par with the architects of the great American songbook, look no further than their most recent composition, an unassuming little number called “The Lemonade Song.” Written by Forbes and Lauderdale along with Hotel Café legend Jim Bianco, and released on YouTube in August, it’s the unofficial anthem of the pandemic experience, whittling the old saw about what to do when you get lemons down to its essence, then stringing it with a delightful succession of “You’re the Top”-style couplets.