Deb Silver, International Recording Artist and Songwriter, at Zinc Bar

Hip. In a way you would want it to be. But not in a way you’d expect. It feels lived-in. And unsure of its age, or of when it was born. What looks like actual, red crushed velvet wallpaper probably isn’t. What looks like a late 19th Century tin ceiling probably is, awkwardly housing its four round, nickel-rimmed light fixtures which look nary a decade old in, technically, that which is neither Manhattan’s SoHo, nor NoHo, neither Heaven, nor Hell. Smack dab in the middle of Greenwich Village’s Houston Street, the shoebox-shaped and sized Zinc Bar, isn’t really there, unless you are looking for it. Jane, one of my favorite restaurants, is a few yards away. I have drank and eaten there dozens of times, and yet never saw Zinc, until I planned on meeting friends there, and said what most everyone must, as they look from the sidewalk down the steep and rusty metal stairs that you think would take you to some boutique’s leaky basement, but lead to Zinc’s open front door: “Oh.”

Inside Zinc, you feel like something’s missing, and you quickly realize, once you’ve had a chance to accomodate yourself to the cramped, dim, muggy quarters, and regardless of whether you are old enough to base your expectations having watched on television old movies of the 1930s and 40s, or older to have seen their first runs, what’s missing, is cigarette smoke. Instinctively, you miss it. I missed it, and I’m not a smoker. What I did not miss last night was Deb Silver’s captivating hold on the forty or so people she sang to. Deb Silver is not at all like the Jazz bar she performs in, the first Monday evening of every month. She’s young, tall, attractive, yet all that disappears as she shares songs like “Too Much Time,” and “Young At Heart” (which she dedicated to her mother,) because she forces you to watch her eyes, often closed, but which she uses to let you know where she is headed. Sometimes, she celebrates the two men accompanying her, guitar and base players, with whom she plays just once a month.

The audience, of which I am happy to say I was neither the youngest nor the oldest, was somewhat diverse, and very familiar with her choices. I knew when to put down my scotch because I could feel the audience preparing to applaud in the middle of her (fortunately) long songs. I compared the catalogue to Linda Ronstat’s “What’s New” album of 1983. Silver sings with a bit more gusto. Verve might be the right word. But her performance made me feel that I was hearing “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry,” or “Someone To Watch Over Me,” or “What’ll I Do.”

What I’ll do is be back next month.

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Hear Deb Silver on MySpace.

Visit Jane, and order my favorites: the Vanilla Bean French Toast, the Lobster Benny, the Jane Burger, and the Milk & Cookies.

End the evening at Zinc Bar.

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