Sat 1/24 @ 7:30PM
It’s been an annual tradition for a decade for local presenter The Musical Theater Project join forces with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra for one of it’s The Song Is You! Series, which pay tribute to great 20th century composers and musicians of Broadway, jazz and the Great American Songbook.
Their 10th annual collaboration is called Stardust: The Songs of Hoagy Carmichael. Carmichael (1899-1981) was a musician who was also one of the most successful pop songwriters of his era with more than 50 hit tunes, mostly during his peak years of the 1930s and 40s. You undoubtedly know some of them, which have been recorded countless times: the program’s titular “Stardust,” “Heart and Soul,” “Georgia of My Mind,” “The Nearness of You.” He shared the 1951 Oscar for Best Original Song with lyricist Johnny Mercer in 1951 for “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” featured in the romance comedy Here Comes the Groom starring Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman, who recorded the song.
The evening will be co-hosted by TMTP’s artistic director Bill Rudman who conceived and wrote the show, and CJO’s artistic director Paul Ferguson who is the show’s musical director. Performers include vocalists Erin Keckan, Michael Shirtz and Evelyn Wright, the Joe Hunter Trio and member of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra. If you’re familiar with TMTP’s shows, you know they’re more than just a bunch of tunes: they tell stories with narration by the host (and CJO trumpet player Jack Schantz who will be voicing Hoagy), video clips, photos and lighting. And you’ll hear more than two dozen tunes including all the familiar ones mixed with some less familiar ones.
The show takes place at the Maltz Performing Arts Center. Go here for tickets.
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