Symphony gets jazzy with Ella Fitzgerald salute
They call it The Great American Songbook. But a rose by any other name …
Last Friday’s Houston Symphony performance of “The Ella Fitzgerald Songbook” was both a joy to behold and something of a misnomer. Besides the Queen of Jazz, principal Pops conductor Steven Reineke broadened the program’s scope to include other performers of similar vintage — Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway and the like.
As Reineke explained from the podium, the original idea was to celebrate Fitzgerald’s centennial year of 2017 with a concert early that September. Surprise, surprise, surprise, Hurricane Harvey had other plans for the city and its orchestra. It just took a few beats for everyone’s schedules to realign.
But all things considered, the weekend after Valentine’s Day made a decent makeup date. Songs like “Love Is Here to Stay” and “You Go to My Head” evoke a bygone era of romance and Woolworth diamond bracelets rather than Netflix and chill. But the spell they continue to cast has easily outlasted the vaudeville revues and long-forgotten movies in which many originally appeared.
Reineke, who often seems to be dancing as much as conducting, wasted no time setting an upbeat, frisky mood. “Take the ‘A’ Train,” the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s signature tune, opened the evening under a backdrop of the sparkling Manhattan skyline. The idea, Reineke said, was to re-create the atmosphere of historic Harlem venues, like the Cotton Club and Savoy Ballroom, as much as possible.
Short of an actual battle of the bands onstage — like the legendary 1938 night at the Savoy that pitted the Chick Webb Band, featuring Fitzgerald, versus the Billie Holiday-fronted Count Basie Orchestra — it worked. Instead of two vocalists, here there were three: Capathia Jenkins, N’Kenge and Montego Glover, whose combined Broadway, TV, film and recording credits could fill a wall in Jones Hall’s spacious foyer.
In a way, it’s too bad the three women didn’t share the stage until the closing number, “Blues in the Night,” and then a spirited encore of “Come on Get Happy.” Their give and take during those two Harold Arlen numbers was playful enough that one or two more sprinkled throughout the evening wouldn’t have been unwelcome.
But the spotlight is jealous. Certainly Jenkins’ radiant “Love Is Here to Stay,” N’Kenge’s flirtatious “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” and Glover’s enchanting “The Best Is Yet to Come,” to name just three, all made solid cases that songs this luxurious and intimate weren’t really meant to be split up.
Jenkins, whose credits include “Newsies” on Broadway and NBC’s live production of “The Wiz,” was perhaps the most versatile vocalist of the three, easily keeping pace with the orchestra’s frenetic tempo on “Something’s Gotta Give” or Sousa-esque flourishes of “Strike Up the Band.” During the languid “Summertime,” her simmering vocals suddenly grew so intense during the climax that some audience members were on their feet before Reineke dropped his baton.
Originator of Mary Wells in “Motown: The Musical,” N’Kenge was well-suited for both mischievous cabaret-style numbers like Cab Calloway’s “Zah Zuh Zaz” and the rainy-day blues of Holiday’s “Stormy Weather.” In the second half, her sultry take on “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” temporarily banished the specter of Frank Sinatra.
Currently appearing in the Chicago production of “Hamilton,” Glover is perhaps a more purely theatrical singer; she let the Latin pulse of “You Go to My Head” flow straight through to her arms. But her finest moment was probably first-act finale “Come Rain or Come Shine,” which began in a hushed, confessional tone — she could have easily been singing into a mirror — before betraying a steel diaphragm in the climax that caused the audience to gasp as much out of shock as admiration.
The orchestra itself got plenty of licks in, too. On instrumentals like Count Basie’s “One O’Clock Jump” and “Mack the Knife,” they obviously relished the chance to sink their teeth into classic composers like the Gershwin brothers and Johnny Mercer, to say nothing of the great arranger Nelson Riddle. Hats off to the raft of soloists, including Joey Tartell, trumpet; Woody Witt, alto sax; Mark Holter, tenor sax (especially for “Summertime”); Thomas LeGrand, clarinet; and trombonist Allen Barnhill.
Guitarist Paul Chester, pianist Gary Norian and drummer Joe Beam did yeoman’s work all night long; swingin’ ain’t easy.
In time, the Rockies may crumble and Gibraltar may tumble, but these songs are here to stay. They may not get much radio play in Houston anymore, except when Tom Richards and Ronnie Renfrow pick up a Sunday shift on KPFT-FM/90.1. But they’re still closer than you might think — as the cornerstone of Michael Bublé’s repertoire, for one; his March 26 Toyota Center concert is nearly sold out. The Woodlands Pavilion will host Sinatra impersonator Bob Anderson a week or so after that.
So never mind the nearly 18-month delay for this celebration of Ella and her ilk. Turns out the symphony was right on time.