Frances Hill and Peter Napolitano co-direct sensitively, and the musical direction is by Tuffus Zimbabwe. Projected clips add to the effectiveness, but the strength lies in Beverley’s ability to bring back memories of Mercer for those who saw her perform, and to sympathetically introduce her to audience members too young to have experienced her in person and may know her only through her recordings.

Beverley sings numbers that Mercer sang, including “You Will Wear Velvet,” “Summertime,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine,” “Love for Sale,” “If You Leave Paris,” “Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor,” “Let Me Love You,” and “Just One of Those Things.” Special material has been written by Barry Levitt (music) and Napolitano (lyrics)—“The Story Is My Song” and “Mabel Madness.”

Mercer was born in England to a white British woman who performed in music halls and an African-American jazz musician who died before Mercer’s birth. Picture the difficulty of the mother in that era.

Beverley starts low-key, giving her time to build the impact. Most poignant is the recollection of Mercer’s difficult childhood. There also was the struggle for recognition in the racist clime and how she eventually gained fame in 1930s Paris before making her mark in the elite cubs of New York. It is a vast personal saga conveyed with feeling.

Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Billie Holiday were among those influenced by Mercer, and we get an inkling of why from the style Beverley adopts in her tour de force as she unassumingly gives us the combination of details and her own singing talent.