Back in the ’90s, Mrs. Fun seemed ubiquitous, whether from their Friday night residency at Downtown’s Café Melange or their many other appearances in the Milwaukee area. Although they remain busy, the duo has kept a lower profile in recent years. This weekend, then, is a rare opportunity to see keyboardist Connie Grauer and drummer Kim Zick live—not once but over three nights and an afternoon matinée at Sunset Playhouse’s SideNotes Cabaret Series.
“We’ll do a few more covers than we usually do,” Grauer says. “Given the setting, we’ll start with ‘Willkommen’ from Cabaret. I’ll say a few words between the verses about our 29-and-a-half years.”
Yes, it’s been that long. The Waukesha natives started Mrs. Fun in Nashville, which had been home base for their previous project, a show band that toured the corporate party circuit. “I didn’t see a future in it,” Grauer says. Moving home to Milwaukee, they found a ready audience for their version of jazz improvisation, which was, well, unusually fun. While Zick sat stoically behind the drum kit, executing rhythms that tied knots around most percussionists, Grauer was all over her keyboards, playing funky bass and lead parts with a spritely touch, stirring the crowd to get up and join the rhumba line around the dance floor. “When I was in seventh grade I was hoping to be a comedian,” she says. “With Kim anchoring the music, I’m free to go off on what I see in the audience. Nothing’s scripted. I build on whatever is happening in the crowd.”
Mrs. Fun still perform a couple of songs from their early albums, the lovely “Lulu’s Walk” and the high-spirited “Love You Loud” (a hit in Canada, Grauer points out), but most of their repertoire is of more recent vintage. Many of the newer songs reveal an Afro-Caribbean influence. Grauer calls Mrs. Fun’s participation in Havana’s International Jazz Festival in the early ’00s “a life-changing experience. I started writing sons, music in the Cuban style.” She may even sing one in Spanish at the Sunset shows.
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As for their absence from local nightclubs, “After 2008 we decided to market ourselves more in the private sector. The clubs weren’t what they used to be,” she says. Private can include everything from school music programs to a return to their roots—company parties. “We’re getting our music out to a lot of different age groups. We’re reaching more people than ever.”
Mrs. Fun performs at Sunset Playhouse’s SideNotes Cabaret Series, Feb. 18-20 in the Furlan Auditorium, 800 Elm Grove Road. For more information, call 262-782-4430 or visit sunsetplayhouse.com.
