Review: A Grand Tribute to the Little Sparrow Édith Piaf

By STEPHEN HOLDEN DEC. 20, 2015

The Little Sparrow dipped and soared through Town Hall on Saturday evening, as a roster that included many downtown performers sang the praises of the French chanteuse Édith Piaf in a swift, dramatically charged centennial celebration. You may not have known, because the deafening clamor surrounding Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday has largely drowned out appreciations of Piaf, who was born in Paris seven days later, on Dec. 19, 1915, and is as important a figure in popular music in France as Sinatra is in the United States. In their ability to convey the raw essence of experience, both had the instincts of wild animals.

Amid all the hosannas, none of Sinatra’s contemporary descendants came close to capturing Ol’ Blue Eyes’ honesty and emotional presence. So it was with Piaf’s admirers, except for the remarkable Vivian Reed, whose renditions of Jacques Laure’s “Heaven Have Mercy” and Charles Dumont and Michel Vaucaire’s “Mon Dieu” shot bullets straight to the gut. Piaf never held back, and neither did Ms. Reed, an heir of Lena Horne in the cold firepower of her majestic rage.