“SWING OUT!”: VINCE GIORDANO and the NIGHTHAWKS (Jan. 4, 2011)

A visit to Club Cache in the Hotel Edison (221 West 46th Street) to see and hear Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks is an effective antidote to piles of grey snow and smaller (yet more lethal) piles of January bills.   

The Nighthawks (having a fine time last Tuesday, January 4) were Jon-Erik Kellso, Mike Ponella, trumpets; Jim Fryer, trombone with and without megaphone; Dan Levinson, Dan Block, Andy Farber, reeds; Andy Stein, violin and reeds; Peter Yarin, piano; Ken Salvo, banjo and guitar; Arnie Kinsella, drums; Vince, bass sax, string bass, tuba, vocals. 

Here are a number of selections — a few familiar ones, some delightful surprises, hot and sweet.

My musical education is always advanced by Vince and the boys — I hear a new arrangement or a striking hot solo, or, in this case, a song I never knew existed.  This one, OH, MISTER CARPENTER! (reminiscent of other period songs that deal with virile handymen) comes from a 1932 pre-Code film starring Lupe Velez and Lee Tracy, THE HALF NAKED TRUTH.  It also featured Franklin Pangborn, Frank Morgan, and Eugene Pallette, so you know there was plenty of gleeful overacting going on.  No overacting on the bandstand, though, and Vince takes such pride in the Nighthawks being thorough old-school professionals that he hands out charts to them that they’ve never seen before . . . and revels in the result.  As did the audience:

And here, courtesy of YouTube, is a clip from the film and a delightfully heated rendition of the song (a simple but irresistible tune which recurs through the last third of THE HALF NAKED TRUTH): 

(Notice that Vince, unlike the orchestra leader in the RKO opus, doesn’t panic when the band gets hot!  Wonderful solos here.)

How about a request from Arnie Kinsella (who gets to play his orchestra bells) — (KEEP YOUR) SUNNY SIDE UP, with a nicely idiomatic crooning vocal from Vince — as well as the rarely-heard verse.  Let that laughter come through:

 In “The People’s” key of G minor, here’s the nightly jam session — this time, THE BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GIVES TO ME, featuring Kellso, Lavinson, Fryer, Stein, and the rhythm section.  Romp it, boys!

Hotter than that: SWING OUT! in tribute to the Luis Russell band of 1929-30, with Jim Fryer becoming J. C. Higginbotham for a minute or so:

The original recording of SHE’S A GREAT GREAT GIRL by Roger Wolfe Kahn’s 1927 orchestra might not have been a jazz landmark if a young (and quite hungover) Jack Teagarden hadn’t been asked to sub for the established master of New York trombonists, Miff Mole.  Here Jim Fryer has another set of mammoth shoes to fill, and he does it nobly; Arnie captures Vic Berton’s tympanic skills, and Andy Stein honors Maestro Venuti, too:

Many of the songs played by the Nighthawks have at least tangential relation to Pee Wee Russell and his associates, but their impromptu version of PEE WEE’S BLUES — an unusual request — featuring three clarinets (Levinson, Block, and Farber, from left to right) was a pleasure:

The audience at Club Cache usually includes the illustrious, and last Tuesday was no exception, for the swinging singer / pianist Daryl Sherman was there, enjoying the music — and contributing a great deal to the evening with her casually heartfelt reading of HOME:

I knew Eubie Blake’s famous composition CHARLESTON RAG (or SOUNDS OF AFRICA) from seeing him perform it in the last decade of his life — but I never knew there was a big band version.  Another pleasing surprise!

And the Nighthawks closed their second set with an acrobatic extravaganza from the Jimmie Lunceford book (composed and arranged by Will Hudson), WHITE HEAT.  Dig the choreography and the four clarinets:

Just another rewarding night on Restaurant Row — hot jazz, sweet dance music, and good times all around.  And catch Vince and his players in the HBO BOARDWALK EMPIRE — they’re rehearsing for a new production of MILDRED PIERCE, on flat-high-definition screens all across the country, soon!

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