Photo by Lou Montesano..

                                                      by Marc Miller

Vivian Reed’s set at the Metropolitan Room runs about an hour twenty, and how she gets through it is anyone’s guess. A hard-working, old-school cabaret veteran with Broadway experience (a Tony nomination for Bubbling Brown Sugar), she displays an amazing, rangy voice, dances, growls, exhibits effusive body language, dishes not-terribly-revealing anecdotes, and gives her able four-piece band plenty of opportunity to shine. Her fans, a refreshingly diverse and effusive bunch, cheer and whoop and talk back to her and give her standing O’s. She’s magnificent. And she’s exhausting.

Her Metropolitan show, “Standards & More,” is mostly standards, and came about, she says, because audiences who love her in her usual R&B mode wanted to see her do something else. Hence this very eclectic songlist, which melds standards into medleys that are notable for their lack of logic. “Just One of Those Things” is classic sassy Cole Porter, but what on earth does it have to do with Lerner and Loewe’s exuberantly romantic “Almost Like Being in Love,” or “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die,” an I-will-survive anthem punctuated by Reed with additional defiance that isn’t in the sheet music (“I’m gonna laugh—HA!!!—till I cry”)? She has to switch gears quickly, and does, but such juxtapositions don’t add up to coherent declarations of mood or character. And she doesn’t do vulnerable. Reed’s message throughout is: I’m in charge.

But she really is, and if you can accept the relentless rush of confidence and vocal pyrotechnics, you’ll have a grand time. Juilliard-trained, Reed has a fabulous instrument; the deep is very deep and pure, the shift into head voice invisible, the power in between formidable (though when her mic failed, she was inaudible). She plays with melodies, improvising detours on “My Funny Valentine” or “Believe in Yourself,” but respects the originals. And when given a chance to make a statement—a harrowing “Strange Fruit,” abetted by wordless accompaniment from guest artist Andrea Jones-Sojola, a poised soprano—she can induce chills.

Reed’s backed splendidly by William Foster McDaniel (piano), Gary Foote (bass), Damon Duewhite (drums), and Erik Jacobson (cello; if we’re to believe her patter, she picked him up after hearing him at Grand Central). All swing beautifully through a Bubbling Brown Sugar medley of “Take the A Train,” “There’ll Be Some Changes Made,” and a roof-raising “Sweet Georgia Brown”; it’s a show-stopper. But Reed wants every number to be a show-stopper. Generally, she succeeds; she’s that good. But laid-back isn’t in her repertoire, and polished and mesmerizing as she is, we’d like to see more colors to her palette. This becomes especially evident during a mic-free, stroll-through-the-audience encore of “Mon Dieu,” part of an Edith Piaf tribute. For once, Reed dials down on the emotional exuberance, lets the material speak for itself, and reveals something approaching vulnerability. It strongly suggests she can do just fine in a more reflective, less hard-charging mode. But it’s followed by a “More” that shows off three octaves, punches the lyric more than it needs to be punched, and seems designed to overwhelm. Vivian Reed has overwhelming down pat.

She’s back at the Metropolitan on September 26 and November 10, and by all means go. But let’s hope that in the interim, she practices a little restraint.

Vivian Reed appears at the Metropolitan Room, 34 W. 22^nd St., New York; metroplitanroom.com.