CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The New York Pops

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 8:00 PM

The New York Pops
Marvin Hamlisch, Conductor and Pianist
Dee Dee Bridgewater, Vocalist
Nikki Yanofsky, Vocalist
Sal Andolina, Clarinet
Jazz Ambassadors
Chief Warrant Officer Gordon K. Kippola, Conductor

The wildly talented and entertaining conductor and pianist returns in a concert of swing-era favorites from the big bands of Miller, Dorsey, Goodman, and others.

This performance is sponsored by Lehman Brothers.

Program Notes:

Tonight’s concert celebrates a remarkable revolution in music that took place in America between the World Wars. In the 1920s, Louis Armstrong and Bix Biederbecke became the leading exponents of a new style of music popularly called “Dixieland.” Originating in New Orleans and its environs, the music that we now know as jazz involved group improvisation with very little of the music notated, and seemed to have its roots planted equally in ragtime as well as marching bands.

By the 1930s, Dixieland jazz had given way to “swing,” performed by “big bands” made up of clarinets and saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Individual musicians still played improvised solos but within the structure of written arrangements performed by the band. The songs had a terrific rhythmic force, coupled with harmonic sophistication. Swing bands ranged from groups like Count Basie’s, which emphasized a blues-y riff style, to New York bands like Duke Ellington’s and Glenn Miller’s, both of which experimented with a varied range of musical colors.

Swing crossed ethnic and racial lines freely. White, black, and Latin musicians borrowed from each other constantly. The “King of Swing,” Benny Goodman, was in fact a child of Jewish immigrants who earned the respect of white and black musicians alike when he integrated his band in 1936.

Swing evolved from a style of music to a cultural phenomenon largely because of two nights in Goodman’s career. The first was August 21, 1935, at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. The Goodman Band was near the end of a disappointing tour and nearly broke. That night, after a tepid first set of mild pop tunes, Goodman supposedly said something like, “To hell with it, if we’re going to sink, we might as well go down swinging.” During the next set the band played “hot” numbers that arranger Jimmy Mundy called the “killer-dillers.” The crowd went wild. Newspapers across the country carried the news, speaking of a new dance craze called the “jitterbug” that had been sparked by the Goodman Band’s music.

Fueled by his success, Goodman was booked into Carnegie Hall on January 16, 1938. The concert was conceived as a publicity stunt by Goodman’s manager but history was made during the last part of the marathon concert, when the Goodman Band began playing jump tunes arranged by Mundy, most famously “Sing, Sing, Sing”—powered by drummer Gene Krupa, the showman of the band. From that moment, swing music entered the mainstream.

Almost exactly 70 years since that landmark night, we return to Carnegie Hall with music that has never lost its appeal.

Marvin Hamlisch

Thanks to All About Jazz columnist David Rickert and the Center for History and New Media for their contributions to these notes.

The New York Pops
Marvin Hamlisch, Conductor and Pianist
Marvin Hamlisch's life in music is notable for its great versatility as well as its substance. As a composer, Mr. Hamlisch has won virtually every major award that exists: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony, and three Golden Globe awards; his groundbreaking show, A Chorus Line, received the Pulitzer Prize.

He is the composer of more than 40 motion picture scores including his Oscar-winning score and song for The Way We Were and his adaptation of Scott Joplin’s music for The Sting, for which he received a third Oscar. His prolific output of scores for films includes original compositions and/or musical adaptations for Sophie’s Choice, Ordinary People, The Swimmer, Three Men and A Baby, Ice Castles, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, and Save the Tiger.

Mr. Hamlisch holds the position of principal pops conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and San Diego Symphony.

Mr. Hamlisch was musical director and arranger of Barbra Streisand’s 1994 concert tour of the US and England as well as of the television special Barbra Streisand: The Concert, for which he received two of his Emmys.

Mr. Hamlisch is a graduate of The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Divison and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queens College. He believes in the power of music to bring people together. “Music can make a difference. There is a global nature to music, which has the potential to bring all people together. Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can.”

Dee Dee Bridgewater, Vocalist
Winner of Broadway’s coveted Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in The Wiz, and nominated for the London theater’s West End equivalent, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical in Lady Day, Dee Dee Bridgewater has also won two Grammy Awards and France’s 1998 Victoire de la Musique for Best Jazz Vocal Album. She joined the battle against world hunger in October 1999 when she was named Ambassador to the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

As a sparkling ambassador for jazz, she bathed in its music before she could walk. Her mother played the greatest albums of Ella Fitzgerald, whose artistry has provided inspiration for Dee Dee throughout her career. Her father was a trumpeter who taught music to Booker Little, Charles Lloyd, and George Coleman, among others.

Dee Dee made her New York debut in 1970 as the lead vocalist for the band led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, one of the premier jazz orchestras of the time. These New York years marked an early career in concerts and on recordings with such giants as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach, and Roland Kirk, and rich experiences with Norman Connors, Stanley Clarke and Frank Foster’s “Loud Minority.”

Taking over the reigns of JazzSet from the illustrious Branford Marsalis, Dee Dee continues to bring her message to listeners. NPR’s JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater is the jazz lover’s ears and eyes on the world of live music. It presents today’s best jazz artists in performance on stages around the world, taking listeners to Puerto Rico and Cuba, as well as Marciac in the French countryside and across the North American continent from Montreal to Monterey.

Dee Dee Bridgewater’s most recent album, Red Earth—A Malian Journey, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2007.

Nikki Yanofsky, Vocalist
At the age of ten, when most kids are online checking out the latest hip-hop artist or alternative rock band, Nikki Yanofsky was discovering the magic of Ella Fitzgerald and listening to “It Don’t Mean a Thing” and “A-Tisket, a-Tasket.”

A few short years later, the young singer was in a recording studio with legendary producer Tommy LiPuma and some of L.A.’s top jazz musicians, brilliantly scatting her way through Lady Ella’s classic “Airmail Special” for Verve Records’ all-star collection We All Love Ella: Celebrating The First Lady Of Song. Already a rising star in her native Canada, Nikki more than held her own with the legendary artists on the collection, including Michael Bublé, Diana Krall, Natalie Cole, Etta James, Chaka Khan, Dianne Reeves, and Gladys Knight.

Since her premiere show at the 2006 Montreal International Jazz Festival, where, performing on an outdoor stage, she wowed two ecstatic audiences of more than 100,000, Nikki has captured the hearts of thousands of admirers with her stunning stage presence as well as her generosity. Along with having her own foundation at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, she has been involved in events that have raised over six-million dollars for local, national and international charities.

As Nikki makes her Carnegie Hall debut on her 14th birthday, it seems like the sky is the limit for this budding musical prodigy.

Sal Andolina, Clarinet
In the worlds of classical music and jazz, crossover versatility is rarely found in a single individual. Over the past decade or so, however, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has witnessed the keen achievements of one of Buffalo’s native sons, Salvatore Andolina. Now the Orchestra’s switch-hitter in his permanent position, Sal is clarinetist, bass clarinetist, and saxophonist.

As a touring artist, Sal has appeared at major venues throughout the US including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and in Los Angeles on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Recent international performances include a recital tour in Japan in 2007. Sal has been featured often as a supporting soloist with Marvin Hamlisch and Doc Severinsen and a variety of distinguished performers including Dianne Reeves, Natalie Cole, and John Pizzarelli.

Of special significance is the release of Sal’s tribute to Benny Goodman on a solo CD titled Like Benny to Me. With a marvelous jazz combo as backup, Sal’s CD revives 15 Goodman favorites—a joyous excursion into the Golden Age of Swing. His recordings are broadcast on NPR, APR, and the BBC.

Jazz Ambassadors
Chief Warrant Officer Gordon K. Kippola, Conductor
The Jazz Ambassadors is the United States Army’s premier touring jazz band. Formed in 1969, it has received great acclaim both at home and abroad performing America’s original art form, jazz. Concerts by the Jazz Ambassadors entertain all types of audiences and highlight the group’s gifted soloists. Its diverse repertoire includes big band swing, bebop, Latin, contemporary jazz, standards, original compositions, popular tunes, Dixieland, and patriotic selections.

The band has appeared in all 50 states, Canada, and Mexico, and throughout the Far East and Europe. Notable performances include concerts at international jazz festivals in Montreux, Switzerland; Newport, Rhode Island; Toronto, Canada; Brussels, Belgium; and the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.

In 1995, the Jazz Ambassadors performed in England, Wales, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Czech Republic in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The band has also been featured in unique collaborations with major orchestras, including the Detroit and Baltimore symphonies. During a joint performance with the National Symphony Orchestra, conductor Marvin Hamlisch declared, “I can’t think of better ambassadors for our country.” Wherever they travel, the Jazz Ambassadors proudly carry the message of patriotism and goodwill to audiences worldwide.