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

[Mark Bardenwerper]

On 1/11/2014 10:30 AM, Michael Biel wrote:
> 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.
>
May I be the fIrst to ask whether is will be recorded?

-- 
Mark L. Bardenwerper, Sr.

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