Randy Newman, Ian Matthews: The Troubadour, Los Angeles CA

RANDY NEWMAN looks like a kid you used to know in high school — the one who always read Scientific American and got A's in trig. Which has nothing to do with the fact that he plays piano in a way that suggests a stripped-down version of the New York/orchestral-piano/stride style, generously filled out with evidence of the proficient assimilation of several dozen pop/schlock/rock/cabaret/supper club idioms, and polished off with an overall gloss that suggests a strung-out recreation of Gene Austin. He's not at all your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, rock-and-roll teenage heart-throb, in other words.