MILESTONES–A TRIBUTE TO MILES DAVIS
at Stage Left
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Which is why I find Frank Melcori’s current show so appealing. When this kindly, soft-spoken, rather unassuming monologuist steps onto the stage, he does so with his defenses down, ready to honestly reveal what’s in his soul. Melcori doesn’t play characters. He spends most of his time telling about his life in a tone only a half step more theatrical than he’d use at home. Like better-known monologuists such as Spalding Gray, Kevin Kling, or Cheryl Trykv, Melcori allows the substance of his story to carry the show, though he’s even less mannered.
Why Melcori has chosen to call this collection of autobiographical musings “a tribute to Miles Davis” is not entirely clear. It is in no way a musical tribute in the tradition of those vulgar, glitzy star-studded affairs that appear on TV from time to time. At no point does Melcori pick up the horn set prominently in a spotlight and play some Davis standard. And it’s not clear why Melcori begins and ends his show with a quotation from Davis’s 1989 autobiography, in which Davis vividly describes the experience of performing “Milestones” with the likes of John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley.
