[78-L] Just Announced -- Vince G Recreating Whiteman Concert

[Michael Biel]

Vince just put this on facebook last night.  Tickets are not yet
available.

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks with Conductor Maurice Peress present
the 90th Anniversary Celebration of Rhapsody in Blue
 
 Paul Whiteman’s historic Aeolian Hall Concert will be recreated on
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 at The Town Hall, NYC, on the same day and
same block as the original concert 90 years ago
 
 Program features solo pianists Ted Rosenthal, Jeb Patton, and the
22-piece Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Orchestra, conducted by
Maurice Peress; Jazz Age concert will feature music of George Gershwin,
Irving Berlin, Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern and Zez Confrey 
 
 Bandleader Vince Giordano and Conductor Maurice Peress, who share a
love for American music, have joined forces to honor the 90th
Anniversary of Paul Whiteman’s historic Aeolian Hall concert that
introduced George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue. 
 
 This concert will be on Wednesday, February 12th, at The Town Hall, 123
West 43rd Street, NYC, at 8:00pm for a one-time-only performance.
Tickets are modestly price ranging from $25 to $40 and will be available
soon at ticketmaster or at The Town Hall box office.
 
 The program will recreate the authentic Whiteman concert “Experiment
in Modern Music”. 
 In recognition of the "first jazz band recording," Whiteman opened with
Livery Stable Blues, complete with mock horse whinnies and chicken
squawks in the raucous hokum-style of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
Whiteman then played his most-favored Palais Royal arrangements, which
included solo turns for virtuoso banjo player Mike Pingatore,
multiple-reed wizard Ross Gorman and trumpet player Henry Busse.
Nighthawk virtuosos Ken Salvo, Dan Block, Michael Ponella, Dan Levinson
and Jon-Erik Kellso will recreate solos and exact renderings from
Whiteman’s hit records: Whispering, Limehouse Blues and Mama Loves
Papa. Crowd-pleasing "knuckle busters" performed by the dashing novelty
piano virtuoso Zez Confrey, will be recreated by brilliant jazz pianist
Jeb Patton. Andy Stein (known for his work on “A Prairie Home
Companion”) will be featured in Paul Whiteman’s role on violin.
 
 When the audience returns for the evening’s second half, they will be
greeted by an augmented Nighthawk orchestra. The three reeds, four brass
and five rhythm pieces will be joined by eight violins, two French horns
and an extra bass. 
 
 For the first time in his dance-band career, Whiteman put down his
violin and took up a baton to lead special arrangements of selections
including MacDowell’s To a Wild Rose and Rudolf Friml’s Chansonette,
later known as the Donkey Serenade. Whiteman concluded the
“Experiment” with Gershwin’s masterful Rhapsody in Blue, which had
been commissioned especially for the occasion. 
 
 On February 12th, 2014, Rhapsody in Blue will feature the first winner
of the Thelonious Monk competition, jazz piano virtuoso Ted Rosenthal.
 
 “Whiteman’s idea that Gershwin compose ‘a jazz piece for solo
piano and orchestra’ turned out to be inspired. Gershwin artfully
transforms the same ragtime and blues harmonies, the fiddle, brass and
sax colors, and the banjo and tuba rhythms that the audience had been
listening and toe-tapping to throughout the evening, into a masterwork
with immediate appeal,” says Peress. “With his Rhapsody in Blue for
solo piano and jazz band, Gershwin took a giant step for American music.
It is indisputably the first American orchestral work shaped from blues
and ragtime that ‘crossed over’ and found a welcome place in the
standard orchestral repertoire.”
 
 “The original performance of Rhapsody In Blue in 1924 established
George Gershwin as one of the truly unique voices in American music, and
solidified Paul Whiteman’s reputation as America’s leading
bandleader”, said Giordano. “By recreating this historic event, we
honor Whiteman and Gershwin, and commemorate the 90th anniversary of the
piece and the event that changed music forever.”
 
 About the Artists: 
 During his long career as an American symphony conductor maestro,
Maurice Peress’s work with Leonard Bernstein (assistant conductor of
the NY Philharmonic, world premiere of Mass), and Duke Ellington (world
premiere of Queenie Pie, orchestrator Suite from Black Brown and Beige,
editor of the symphonic works) underscores his life-long commitment to
“create concerts that reconstruct delicious mixed marriages of music,
black and white, Jazz and classical, folk and concert, Native American
and European; works that bring people together, that urge us to love one
another,” (from his forthcoming memoire, A Conductor’s Manifesto
Paradigm Publishers). In his earlier book, Dvorak to Duke Ellington
(Oxford UP) he writes: “In preparation for my reconstruction of the
Aeolian Hall Concert, I consulted several original sources of the
Rhapsody in Blue; Gershwin’s pencil holograph in the Library of
Congress (the two-piano score he prepared for Grofe), Milton
Rettenberg’s 1924 manuscript copy of the same, a photocopy of
Grofé’s original score in the Whiteman Collection at Williams
College, and the June 10, 1924 recording by Whiteman with Gershwin as
piano soloist. The recording and our performance is chock-a-block with
details never written down in the score or parts. I have to assume that
during the road tour, which immediately preceded the recording sessions,
some of the jazz embellishments added by the players, or Gershwin,
became ‘frozen’ such as the little bundles of turning notes
(gruppetti) that flavor a phrase, and klezmer-like whoops and hollars
that clarinetist Ross Gorman introduced here and there, not only into
the familiar opening.”
 
 Grammy-winners Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks have played in New
York nightclubs, appeared in films: “The Cotton Club”, “The
Aviator” and HBOs “Boardwalk Empire”, and for concerts at Jazz At
Lincoln Center and the Newport Jazz Festival. Born in Brooklyn,
Giordano’s passion for this music and the people that made it began at
age 5. He has amassed an amazing collection of over 60,000 band
arrangements, 1920’s and 30’s films, 78 recordings and jazz-age
memorabilia. Giordano sought out and studied with important survivors
from the period; Whiteman’s hot arranger Bill Challis and drummer
Chauncey Morehouse, and bassist Joe Tarto. Giordano’s passion,
commitment to authenticity, and knowledge led him to create a
sensational band of like-minded players the Nighthawks. Vince Giordano
has single handedly kept alive an amazing genre of American music that
continues to spread the joy and pathos of an era that shaped our nation.

 
 Ted Rosenthal first achieved international recognition by winning first
prize in the 2nd annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano
Competition. Since that time he has performed with many jazz greats,
including Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer and
James Moody. Ted has released 14 CDs as a leader, featuring new
treatments and “derangements” of jazz standards as well as his
original compositions. A faculty member of Manhattan School of Music and
The Juilliard School, Ted is very active in jazz education. He teaches
courses on a variety of topics and presents jazz clinics throughout the
world.