Monthly Archives: February 2017

Black History Month – The Biggest Show of 1951 at Robinson Auditorium (with Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughan)

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big-show-1951On November 7, 1951, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, Nat King Cole and His Trio, and Sarah Vaughan headlined a three hour stage show which was billed nationally as “The Biggest Show of 1951.”

The tour launched in September 1951 and continued through December.  Also part of the show were Marie Bryant leading the dancers, vaudevillian Peg Leg Bates, comedian Timmie Rogers, comedians Stump and Stumpy and comedians Patterson and Jackson.  The tour played New England, parts of Canada, and the South.  At some venues in the South, the white musicians in Ellington’s orchestra were not allowed to play on stage with the African American musicians.  Sometimes he referred to his drummer as a light-skinned Haitian.

This was not the first visit for Cole or Ellington.  The former had been there in 1943 and 1944.  The latter had played there in 1949.

At the concert in Little Rock, there is no reference to problems with the musicians appearing on stage together. In a role reversal, white audience members were restricted to the balcony, while the orchestra and mezzanine levels were reserved for African American audience members.  (Many Southern venues would not even allow African Americans to attend events there at all, or to be in the same audience as whites.)  There were separate box offices.  White patron tickets were available at the Arcade Building. Tickets were $2.55 with tax included.  African Americans could purchase tickets at Lloyds Cafe on West 9th Street. Tickets ranged from $5.66 down to $2.44 with tax included.  The Robinson Box Office would be open a couple of hours before the concert began.

The advertisements did not provide instructions as to which doors were to be used to enter the building, so it was likely that the patrons headed to the balcony were able to enter through the three main front doors, while the orchestra and mezzanine level patrons had to enter in the one segregated door to the east of the main doors.

Black History Month – PORGY & BESS at Robinson Auditorium

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porgy-bess-robinsonOn December 6, 1943, one of the great love stories of the 20th Century came to Robinson Auditorium.  Cheryl Crawford’s Broadway revival of PORGY & BESS was presented for one performance.

The show was on a national tour after having played Broadway in 1942 and 1943.  The cast included Todd Duncan, who had originated the role of Porgy in 1935 and Etta Moten, for whom George and Ira Gershwin had originally written the part of Bess.  Avon Long played Sportin’ Life (as he would for much of his long career).  The Eva Jessye Choir was the chorus, as they had been for the original 1935 Broadway debut and were in the 1942 and 1943 Broadway revivals.

Conductor Alexander Smallens had been associated with the title since its 1935 debut. The design team of Herbert Andrews (settings) and Paul Du Pont (costumes) had been brought to the project in 1942 by producer Crawford.

This production of Porgy & Bess eliminated some of the singing and changed most of the recitatives to spoken dialogue. It made it less like an opera and more like conventional musical theatre.  While it may not have been true to George Gershwin’s original intent, it was financially more successful than the original production.  In fact, the Crawford version played Broadway in 1942, 1943, and 1944, with national tours after each of the stops on the Rialto.

In 1942, the cast of the revival had performed a one hour version on radio. This was recorded and released, making it one of the first original cast recordings of a Broadway production.

Based on the play by DuBose and Dorthy Heyward,  George Gershwin envisioned Porgy & Bess as an American opera. It had a libretto by DuBose Heyward, who also supplied lyrics along with George’s brother Ira.  While the original production seemed to have slightly confounded critics and audiences who were expecting something more along the lines of the breezy Gershwin shows of the 1920s and early 1930s, it has proven to be a durable title.  It fell out of favor in the 1960s and early 1970s as the Civil Rights movement was causing people to rethink the depictions of African Americans.  In 1976, the Houston Grand Opera staged a new production which restored most of Gershwin’s score and returned it squarely into the realm of opera.  This production played Broadway in 1976 (and won the 1977 Tony for Best Revival) and was revived in 1983 on Broadway.

The most recent notable production of Porgy & Bess originated at Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre in 2011.  It officially opened on Broadway in January 2012 (where Little Rock native Will Trice was one of the producers).  In addition to winning the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical, it captured a Tony for Audra McDonald’s performance of Bess (Miss McDonald’s fifth Tony).

Black History Month – Al Jarreau and Robinson Center

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aljWhile he made a few subsequent visits in the intervening years, Al Jarreau’s first visit to Little Rock was in May 2002, when he performed with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra at Robinson Center Music Hall.

By that time, Jarreau was a Grammy winning artist with a decades long career.  He received a total of seven Grammy Awards (and several other nominations). So in a way it was fitting that he died on the day that the 2017 Grammy Awards were handed out.

Jarreau’s unique vocal sounds lent itself to many different styles of music.  He would sing jazz, R&B, and standards from the American songbook.  While his recordings were a delight, seeing him perform in concert was even better due to the joy in his face as he was performing.

Born in Milwaukee, he was the son of a minister and church musician.  Growing up singing music, he sang in groups while in college (though his degree was in psychology).  While working as a rehab counselor in San Francisco in the late 1960s, he started performing in music clubs in the Bay Area.  In 1968, he made music his primary vocation. (But education remained a key focus of his philanthropic and volunteer activities.)

In the 1970s and 1980s, he recorded and toured extensively.  In the 1990s, he did not record as much, but kept up his touring schedule.  He also played the Teen Angel on Broadway in a revival of Grease.  He kept touring up until earlier this year.  On February 8, after being hospitalized, he announced his retirement from touring.

Black History Month – James Earl Jones and Robinson Center

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james_earl_jones_headshotActor James Earl Jones has made several appearances in Central Arkansas over the years.  He has appeared at Robinson Center with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.  On February 12, 1999, he narrated Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” and Alexander Miller’s “Let Freedom Ring” with the Symphony in a concert at Robinson Center.  (It was the 190th birthday for Lincoln.)

Born in Mississippi, he spent most of his childhood in Michigan.  After service in the Army during the Korean War, he moved to New York to study theatre.  In the late 1950s he started alternating between Broadway (where he often played a servant) and Off Broadway (where he played leading roles).  His first film appearance was in Dr. Strangelove….  From the 1960s onward he has alternated between stage, film and TV.  In the 1980s, he added voice work to his repertoire.

In 1969 and in 1987, he won Tony Awards for Actor in a Play (The Great White Hope and Fences, respectively).  His other Tony nominations have been for revivals of On Golden Pond and The Best Man.  He was nominated for an Oscar in 1970 for reprising The Great White Hope on film.  He received two Emmy Awards in 1991 – the only actor to ever win two in the same year.

In 2008, he won the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2011 he was given an Honorary Oscar.  In 2002, he was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient.

He is probably best loved for his work as the voice of Darth Vader in many of the Star Wars films as well as his voicework in The Lion King.

Black History Month – Lionel Hampton and Robinson Auditorium

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lionelhampton2Bandleader Lionel Hampton made several stops at Robinson Center throughout his career.

Born in 1908 in Louisville, he and his mother bounced around to Alabama and Wisconsin before settling in Chicago in 1916.  Originally a drummer, he started playing around with the vibraphone. In 1930, Louis Armstrong asked him to play the vibes on a couple of tracks for an album – and a new career was born.

In 1936, he started playing with Benny Goodman in an integrated trio and quartet.  In 1940, he left Goodman to form his own big band.  It was with this group that he would appear at Robinson Auditorium.  He continued to tour from the 1950s up until the 1980s.  Though he had to curtail his performance schedule after suffering a stroke onstage in 1991, he would perform from time to time in the 1990s.  His last performance was in 2001 not long before his death.

In his career, he received the 1992 Kennedy Center Honors, 1996 National Medal of the Arts, and numerous honorary degrees.

Black History Month – Ella Fitzgerald and Robinson Auditorium

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ellaElla Fitzgerald appeared at Robinson Auditorium in the 1940s.  She made the stops as she crisscrossed the US performing her hit songs.

Born in Virginia in 1917, she was raised in Yonkers. At 17 she won a contest at the Apollo Theatre which launched her career.  Saxophonist Benny Carter and bandleader Chick Webb were both instrumental in helping her establish her career.  She would tour with Webb until his death, and then took over as bandleader.

In 1938, at the age of 21, Ella recorded a playful version of the nursery rhyme, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.” The album sold 1 million copies, hit number one, and stayed on the pop charts for 17 weeks.

She later toured with Dizzy Gillespie’s band and there met Ray Brown. The two would marry and adopt a son, Ray Jr.  Though they divorced in 1952, they remained friends.

In the late 1940s through the 1960s, Ella joined the Philharmonic tour, worked with Louis Armstrong on several albums and began producing her songbook series. From 1956-1964, she recorded covers of other musicians’ albums, including those by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart.

As she moved into the 1970s, Ella kept performing. She also started receiving honors and honorary degrees.  She was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1979.  In 1987, President Reagan bestowed upon her the National Medal of the Arts.  Her final concert was in 1991 at Carnegie Hall.  She died in June 1996 in California.

Black History Month – Art Porter, Jr. and Robinson Center

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bhm art jr.Like his father, Art Porter Jr. is recognized with a space named in his memory in the new Robinson Center.

Arthur Lee (Art) Porter Jr. was born in Little Rock on August 3, 1961. Porter began his music career under the tutelage of his father, legendary jazz musician, Arthur Porter, Sr. who surrounded him with everything musical. He performed proficiently on drums, saxophone and piano. He was classically trained but his performances ranged across jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, and ballads.

During high school, under the supervision of Sterling Ingram, private teacher and band director at Parkview High School, Art Jr. was selected to be a member of the Arkansas All-State Band for three consecutive years.  At age 16, he was awarded the “Most Talented Young Jazz Artist in America” by the National Association for Jazz Education.

During Porter’s youth, his playing while underage in venues where liquor was sold proved controversial. Bill Clinton, then attorney general, established a framework for the legislature that would allow minors to work in such venues with parental supervision. Act 321 known as The “Art Porter Bill” became Arkansas law.

Porter graduated from Northeastern University in Chicago, Illinois, in 1986 with a BA degree in music education and performance.

Art burst on the music scene with his debut album, Pocket City (1992), followed by Straight to the Point (1993). In 1994, his third album, Undercover, placed Porter solidly on the “wave” radio charts with R&B artists as well as “cool jazz” artists. During this same year, he performed at Carnegie Hall for the Polygram Anniversary Celebration. His final album, Lay Your Hands on Me (1996), contained the radio favorite “Lake Shore Drive.”

Porter traveled the world with performances but no matter where his music would carry him, he always returned to his beloved hometown of Little Rock. He conducted workshops for music students at his alma maters, Dunbar Magnet Junior High School and Parkview Arts and Science Magnet School. Porter died on November 23, 1996, in a boating accident in Thailand. He had just completed a performance at the Thailand International Golden Jubilee Jazz Festival commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s reign.  In 2013, he was posthumously inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.