[78-L] A Night on the Town

[soundthink at aol.com]

Spending a week on business in the Big Apple and went to Club Cache to see Vince Giordano's Nighthawks. Anyone who is in the city on a Monday evening HAS to see this band play. I knew they were good, but seeing and hearing them live is a totally different experience. The band plays the original charts from the '20s - everyone knows that - but they also use period instruments, including things like Andy Stein's phono-fiddle (a violin with a horn attached to it; supposedly used when recording acoustically pre-1925). Vince even uses a restored microphone from the era. The band not only played written charts, but cut loose on songs like "Diga Diga Doo" and "China Boy," which had the joint jumping. Also in the band were such folks as Randy Sandke and Dan Levinson (I didn't get the entire lineup, but the band, which numbered 12-14, was terrific). 

Vince introduced a variety of celebrities in the audience, including Michael Feinstein, jazz photo maven Frank Driggs, actress Sondra Lee (the original Tiger Lily from "Peter Pan"), WFUV's Rich Conaty, and good old Sol Yaged, who played a couple of tunes on clarinet ("Memories of You" was one). At 86, Sol can still play (he taught Steve Allen how to play clarinet for "The Benny Goodman Story"). 

Vince and his buddies did 3 sets; 3 hours of music for just a $15 cover plus a $15 minimum for dinner and or drinks. I had a fabulous chicken marsala, priced at $16.95, which is not bad, considering we were only a block off of Times Square.

If you wanna hear hot jazz the way it sounded in the speakeasies in the '20s, this is it! We ain't got nothin' like this in L.A.

Cary Ginell