Celebrate the 90th Anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue With Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks

America’s true musical tradition is the Great American Songbook; the great body of music written by brilliant tunesmiths from the Great War through the advent of rock-n-roll (or, if you will, bookended between two global catastrophes).

In an era when artists sought legitimacy, rather than rejecting the very notion, it was not uncommon for Jazz Age songwriters to write ‘serious’ compositions that bridge the worlds of pop and classical music.  Perhaps the most ambitious of the Jazz Age songwriters was George Gershwin (1898-1937).  His great, serious opus of the Jazz Age, Rhapsody in Blue, premiered at the Aeolian Hall on February 12, 1924.  Gershwin was on hand to play the piano, and the concert was conducted by pop music legend Paul Whiteman (1890-1967), who commissioned the piece.

How did Gershwin come to compose his signature piece?  He related to his first biographer: It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer – I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise.... And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.

The 90^th Anniversary of this seminal event is a scant two weeks away.  And to mark this milestone, Bandleader Extraordinaire Vince Giordano will recreate the concert on Wednesday, February 12, 2014 at 8:00 PM at the Town Hall, Manhattan, on the same day and same block as the original concert 90 years ago.  Giordano has gathered solo pianists Ted Rosenthal and Jeb Patton to play along with his 22-piece Nighthawks Orchestra.  The evening will be conducted by Maurice Peress, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody will be accompanied by music by Irving Berlin (1888-1989), Victor Herbert (1859-1924), Jerome Kern (1885-1945) and Zez Confrey (1895-1971).

This is it, this is where American music really found its distinctive voice, Giordano told your correspondent recently.  It’s rare that anyone can put their finger on exactly the moment that a new era starts, but this is pretty close.  There was a sense that America was a new country, and needed a new music to give it voice.  Gershwin rose to that challenge and made musical history.  By doing the concert on the same day, on the same block, just feet away from the original 90 years ago, we are trying to recapture lightning in a bottle.

Giordano has earned great acclaim for his musicianship and for his curatorship of America’s musical heritage.  He has appeared in many major motion pictures (The Aviator and Cotton Club, for example), and was the musical voice for the award-winning television show Boardwalk Empire.  He has long been a favorite with New York sophisticates looking for great music and a smart evening out – he currently plays at the Iguana NYC every Monday and Tuesday evenings in the Times Square area.

Initial response to this planned recreation has been dynamic, and Jade Sphinx readers are encouraged to order tickets as soon as possible.  We will be there, as this promises to be the Must-See musical event of the season.  Tickets are $25, $30, $35 and $40, and are available at the Town Hall box office, or by calling Ticket Master at 800.982.2787.

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Orchestra

No retrospective of the Great American Songbook would be complete without a look at modern masters of the form.  There are several to choose from, and all of them have much to recommend them.  Michael Feinstein (born 1956) is a wonderful scholar of the material and a noted Grammy-winning performer, as well.  Harry Connick (born 1967) is perhaps the most aggressive seeker of Frank Sinatra’s throne, and he, too, has much to commend him.  But neither of these artists, talented as they are, have managed to quite capture the true sparkle of the 1930s, the era when this music was most inventive, most vital and spoke in the most uniquely American dialect.  Feinstein is at times too precious and too mannered in a post-War supper-club style; Connick with his brassy bombast too closely aligned with a Sinatra-esque Las Vegas vibe.  Both artists understand the music, but it seems to them grafted on, a niche they occupy rather than an artistic mission.

For this correspondent, the finest modern interpreter of the American musical canon is Vince Giordano, who fronts the magnificent Nighthawks Orchestra.  Giordano, born in Brooklyn in 1952, is an avid (one may say rabid) scholar of the sound of the 1920s and 1930s, and has a unique genius for this American idiom.  Vince plays the bass saxophone and is the Nighthawks’ only vocalist.  He uses his magnificent library of more than 60,000 arrangements to capture that unique sound, and, when performing live, introduces the sets.  Always at his side is an authentic 1920s era microphone.

Vince and the Nighthawks have performed at many of New York City’s most famous musical venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the 92^nd Street Y and the Red Blazer.  For a long time they were a weekly feature at the lost, lamented supper club the Cajun in Chelsea; they are now at Sofia’s Restaurant, 221 West 46^th Street, every Monday and Tuesday from 8:00 – 11:00 p.m.

And it is not just lucky New Yorkers who can hear Giordano and the Nighthawks.  Vince’s playing with the Dick Hyman Orchestra can be heard on the soundtracks of several Woody Allen films; he provided music for the CD celebrating the release of Kevin Kline’s Cole Porter 2004 biopic, De-Lovely; he can be heard on the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004) and Johnny Depp’s Public Enemies (2009).  And fans of the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire (which features Vince as the bandleader) should know that the soundtrack album has just been released.  In addition, Vince and the Nighthawks are frequent guests on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.

It is here that your correspondent must confess to great admiration for Vince – both as a man and for his brilliant musicianship. He has approached his craft and this musical idiom with a sense of mission, and his love for his art is infectious.  I have followed his career for more than a decade, and have caught his shows at the Cajun, Sofia’s, the Red Blazer and Carnegie Hall.  Listening to the Nighthawks has been one of the great joys of my adulthood – his music is so energetic, so freewheeling and so much fun.  It is no exaggeration at all to say that he has made me grin till my face hurt, and cry tears of joy.

So what, one wonders, is it that is so unique about the Giordano sound?  It is a puzzle not easily solved for the music is so seamless, the sound so natural.  Listening to Vince is akin to hearing a consummate artist married to the right material – it becomes an extension of the man and he becomes, in a way, the music.

A perfectly fine example of this is the great Louis Armstrong (1901-1971).  Armstrong was not a great singer, but everything about him, from his phrasing and his delivery to his peerless trumpeting, made the man music.  Vince has this same gift – when playing the Great American Songbook, Vince becomes the music.

Watching him play is an unqualified delight.  Unlike most of the post-rock era musicians who behave as if they are suffering, or bearing the great weight of their ‘art,’ Vince singing or playing is consumed by joy.  This cat grins, and when he plays the bass, he is dancing with himself.  He is an example to every modern musician and every lover of music.

Vince has recorded many fine CDs, all of which are available directly through him.  My personal favorite is Cheek to Cheek, a collection of songs associated with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  His rendition of The Carioca is simply the finest instrumental recording of the song, ever.  His take on The Continental is perhaps nearly as ethereal as the latter Astaire-Oscar Peterson recording, and Let Yourself Go is Vince at his most energetic and fun-loving best.

His Cotton Club Revisited includes a delightful Stormy Weather and the hyper-jazzed Minnie the Moocher.  His Harlem Holiday is nearly enough to make you want a holiday of your own, and Get Yourself a New Broom and Sweep the Blues Away a tonic for most anything that ails you.

Quality Shout! is packed with delights, particularly Mournful Serenade, Sugar Food Stomp and Stoppin’ the Traffic.  Quality Shout! Is one of Giordano’s most personal recordings; the tunes selected are off-the-radar to all but the most dedicated hot-music devotees, and it was recorded using a small number of microphones, creating balances acoustically and by positioning the musicians to best recreate a late 1920s sound.

For Vince’s album The Goldkette Project, he worked with Bill Challis, who was the staff arranger for Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman.  Challis was the man behind both of those band’s most jazz-oriented numbers, and he also later wrote for Frankie Trumbauer’s small-group dates with Bix Beiderbecke.  Challis befriended a very young Vince and his siblings, and The Goldkette Project is a labor of love.  That love can be heard in every number.  Particularly adept tunes include Sometimes I’m Happy, Idolizing, Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down and Slow River.

Vince recently broadened his musical net by tackling the Big Band hits of the later 1930s and 40s.  His album Moonlight Serenade is a musical ode to the war years, and his In the Mood, Moonlight Serenade and You Made Me Love You are simply magnificent.

These discs are all available at $17 each (which includes postage and tax) with a check or money order made out to Vince Giordano at 1316 Elm Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11230-5916.  I would be hard pressed to think of a better way to spend your money.

Coming soon to the Jade Sphinx, a special, two-part interview with Vince Giordano!

Fred Astaire

We continue examining the voices that make up the Great American Songbook with a look at Fred Astaire (1899-1987).  Your correspondent must confess, upfront, his boundless admiration and affection for Astaire – indeed, it is my firm belief that when all good men die, as a reward they then become Fred Astaire.

At this point, many of my readers are wondering why Astaire, one of the protean dance figures of the 20^th Century, is included in a review of the voices of the Great American Songbook.  Well, I have included Astaire because, not only is he the greatest dancer to appear in motion pictures, but he was also a singer of subtle and distinct phrasing, who knew what a popular song needed and delivered it with a (seemingly) effortless panache.  In fact it was Irving Berlin (1888-1989) – who, along with Cole Porter (1891-1964) and George Gershwin (1898-1937) comprises the trinity of 20^th Century songwriting genius – who said his favorite singer was Fred Astaire.  Several of Berlin’s signature tunes, including Dancing Cheek to Cheek, Steppin’ Out With My Baby, and Puttin’ On the Ritz – were all introduced by Astaire.

So, for the purposes of this exercise, we will overlook Astaire’s monumental contribution to the dance (which, admittedly, is rather like writing about Saturn without mentioning its rings).  Nor will we take especial interest in his consummate style – indeed, cineastes debate who was the most debonair man in American cinema: Astaire or Cary Grant (1904-1986).  While many cite Grant’s well-tailored ease, there was something about Astaire’s carriage and poise that bespoke magic.  It is possible to derive pleasure simply by watching Astaire walk … and snippets of Astaire walking down Fifth Avenue in Easter Parade (1948) should be required viewing before leaving any respectable school.

Astaire is famous for his “white tie and tails,” an ensemble which he personally loathed.  But Astaire was more than formal wear: his leisure clothes were relaxed and unaffected yet elegant.  An unusually thin man (co-star Bing Crosby said he could “spit through him”), Astaire was blessed with the ability to inhabit his clothes rather than having them wear him. 

Instead, let’s look at Astaire the actor and the singer.  He entered movies dancing beside Joan Crawford in Dancing Lady (1933).  It was really little more than a cameo; and he and Ginger Rogers were supporting players in their first film together, Flying Down to Rio (1933).  He and Rogers (1911-1995) were sensations in that film, and they went on to make a total of 10 films together, including Swing Time (1936), Top Hat (1935), and Shall We Dance (1937).  The Astaire-Rogers corpus encompasses some of the finest American musical films ever made, and is essential to an understanding of the evolution of American musical movies.

Astaire in the 1930s is a marvel.  His performances are simple and easy – he exudes enthusiasm, high spirits and an unaffected sophistication.  He seems almost boyish and at times brash – he is irresistible.  And, aside from his acting, his singing has a unique lyricism.  (Jerome Kern would consider him the supreme male interpreter of his songs).

And then … something happened.  The 1930s were Astaire’s first heyday, but he lost considerable ground in the early 1940s.  It’s not that he did not make good films – his Holiday Inn (1942) and Blue Skies (1946) with Bing Crosby are quite terrific – and some of his loveliest dance partners come from this era, including Rita Hayworth and Eleanor Powell. 

What happened, really, was the national zeitgeist changed.  In the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, it was important for Americans to have, I think, a sophisticated ideal.  White tie and tails and penthouses and cocktails were the stuff of dreams, and Astaire personified an ideal that many aspired to, but could never achieve.

With World War II, the struggle against Nazism was a struggle carried mainly by the Average Joe.  In fact, I believe that the 1940s were Crosby’s decade more than Astaire’s because Crosby was able to capture that Average Joe quality of that moment in ways that were simply beyond Astaire’s temperament and ability. 

And so, after playing second fiddle to Crosby again in Blue Skies, Astaire retired … only to reappear a short two years later, teaming with Judy Garland to make the now classic Easter Parade.  This film started a new collaborative period with MGM, and a new phase of his career.

During this second chorus for Astaire, he made some of his finest films, including Royal Wedding (1951), Funny Face (1957), Silk Stockings (1957) and, perhaps his masterpiece, The Band Wagon (1953).  Many of his most famous ‘trick’ dances – including dancing on the walls and ceiling, hoofing with a hat stand, and dancing with a legion of disembodies shoes – occur in these films.

Curiously, though, there is a profound change in Astaire in his post Easter Parade films.  His dancing is more fluid, more sensuous, more ornate than his movements of the 1930s, but his acting seems to have constricted somewhat, as if letting lose in the dance left too little energy for fun in his performances.  The Astaire persona of the 1940s and 1950s is a little tighter, a little more crabbed than the buoyant boy of the 1930s.

After Silk Stockings, Astaire went on to triumphs in television, winning an Emmy for one of his many TV specials, and straight acting roles in a wide range of films, both good and bad.  But nothing could take away the memory of his greatest achievements.

Astaire’s artistic contribution to the American culture is a unique one.  Not only was he the preeminent popular dancer of his day, but Astaire was a gifted film actor and, most important here, one of the great interpreters of popular song.  His movements were music, his speaking voice had a unique rhythm, his singing a gift of phrasing and style.  Fred Astaire is, simply put, the greatest artist to appear in American musical films.

Tomorrow – the Frank Sinatra Paradox!