I once attended a cabaret show in Cherry Grove with Patrick and his principal critique of the singer was that she offered nothing but a barrage of blockbusters, one after another, with no let up. His own show at Birdland was marked by the ebb and flow the aforementioned show lacked: he brought us up, he took us down, and brought us back up again, repeatedly, during the evening. Patrick varied the dynamics as well, his singing brash, con brio, or supple as the song demanded.

Patrick wrote most of the music he performed, but for a smattering of 'classics,' and was at the piano for many of the songs. He seduced the audience immediately, rocking and expressing assurance about identity and goals in his "Standing Up Straight," but, lest we think him too staid, allowed, in his pulsating, driven number, that he was, after all, still "Crazy as Before." Winding the pitch way down, Patrick turned to Billy Joel's "Summer Highland Falls" to evaluate life's experiences ("it's either sadness or euphoria") and, in his own lyrical "Friend," waxed sentimental about "the love I shared with you," using head tone in its gentle penultimate phrases. On the other hand, he reproached an unappreciative partner in his heated "If I Didn't Know."

Patrick saluted his guest star, for whom he has no end of admiration, with excitement in his "Annie Golden Brought Me Flowers" and, suddenly, there she was on stage, singing with him and showing that the admiration is mutual. The mood turned blue for their "(Hard to tell you) How I Feel," by Gary William Friedman and Will Holt. With Patrick playing and then joining her, Ula and Lisa in singing, Ms. G offered a pair of contrasting songs she wrote with Frank Carillo. In "(I wish I could have danced with) Clara Bow," she reflected sadly on silent films' "It Girl," done in by the talkies, and, turning her colleagues into her co-conspirators, sang of pursuing your dreams in the up-tempo "Fire in New Town" ("we're in this together, we all stand alone)." Their let-it-all-hang-out Freddie Mercury number, "One Year of Love," by John Deacon, followed, and they concluded their set with the premiere of their collaboration, a song suffused with regret, showing that, while breaking up is comparatively easy, it's the "Letting Go" that's hard.

Continuing to bare his soul, Patrick found himself, in his "I Hear Your Voice in the Rain," still haunted by a love who has left, while his "Leave Me" was filled with quiet melancholy, but he optimistically probed hope of a reunion in "Let Me Be Your Eyes," his powerhouse finale. Patrick took the stage solo for his encore, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," sung simply, with feeling, and drawing on his most dulcet tone.