Tom Rogers and Sally Anderson with Irvine Barclay Theatre present

The Barclay Jazz & Beyond Orchestra

Le Jazz Hot

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 at 8pm

This performance will include a 15-minute intermission.

Set One

Struttin’ with Some Barbecue – composed by Lil Harden

Featuring Shelly Berg and The Barclay Jazz & Beyond Orchestra 

Honeysuckle Rose – composed by Thomas “Fats” Waller

Featuring Catherine Russell

Do Nothing till You Hear from Me – composed by Edward “Duke” Ellington

Featuring Catherine Russell and Tom Scott

Tom Cat – composed by Tom Scott

Featuring Tom Scott

Dry Cleaner from Des Moines/Twisted – composed by Joni Mitchell / Annie Ross

Featuring Tierney Sutton and Tom Scott 

Skylark – Composed by Hoagy Carmichael

Featuring Tierney Sutton and Shelly Berg

Que reste-t-il de nos amours – composed by Léo Chauliac and Charles Trenet

Featuring Tierney Sutton, Tom Scott, and Shelly Berg

Milestones – composed by Miles Davis

Featuring Tom Scott and The Barclay Jazz & Beyond Orchestra 

Set Two

Bernie’s Tune – composed by Bernie Miller, Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller

Featuring Tierney Sutton

My Heart Belongs to Daddy – composed by Cole Porter

Featuring Tierney Sutton

Napa Valley Suite – composed by Tom Scott

Featuring Tom Scott

The Very Thought of You – composed by Ray Noble

Featuring Catherine Russell and Shelly Berg

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea – composed by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler

Featuring Catherine Russell

It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) – composed by Edward “Duke” Ellington

Featuring Shelly Berg, Catherine Russell, Tom Scott, and Tierney Sutton

The debut concert of The Barclay Jazz & Beyond Orchestra, Le Jazz Hot explores the common thread of passion that has defined jazz since its inception over 100 years ago. The program starts with an updated version of “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” made popular by one of jazz’s founding fathers, Louis Armstrong. The song was composed by pianist Lil Hardin (Armstrong’s wife at the time), and Armstrong’s early bands were appropriately called the Hot Five and Hot Seven.

Two of the early giants in jazz were Thomas “Fats” Waller and Edward “Duke” Ellington. Waller had an outsized personality to go with his prodigious musicianship. He would chomp on a cigar and mug to the audience while playing nearly impossible stride piano. Catherine Russell brings us Waller’s most famous composition, a swinging arrangement of “Honeysuckle Rose.” Duke Ellington is often considered the greatest composer in jazz, from 32-bar songs that the whole world loves to large-scale suites. Ellington’s “Do Nothing til You Hear from Me”  is perfect for Catherine Russell’s coy and sultry style.

Tom Scott and the LA Express was one of the most important bands in the jazz/rock fusion movement of the 1970s. Tom’s tune “Tom Cat” was an international hit at the same time that Scott was touring as bandleader for George Harrison. Scott was also bandleader for Joni Mitchell, whose song “Dry Cleaner from Des Moines” is a satirical look at casino gambling. Tierney Sutton mashes up the Joni Mitchell classic with “Twisted,” a virtuosic vocal exploration by Annie Ross, who rose to fame as a member of a great vocal trio, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.

Hoagy Carmichael was a teenager when Louis Armstrong and others brought hot jazz to Chicago. Carmichael and his friends, including trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, were hooked on the new sounds, which inspired their own great careers. Carmichael went on to compose some of the most beloved songs in jazz, including “Skylark” performed by Tierney Sutton and Shelly Berg as a duet. Next, Tierney takes us to the Hot Club of Paris, an infectious style that originated with gypsy musicians. “Que reste-t-il de nos amours” was a hit for Charles Trenet, and The Barclay Jazz & Beyond orchestra ramps it up in hot club-style.

Tom Scott returns to close the first set with “Milestones,” a classic by Miles Davis. Davis was a history of jazz unto himself, with a career that led the way in bebop, cool and modal jazz, jazz fusion, and world music. Miles launched the careers of Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Marcus Miller, and many other jazz giants.

Bebop is one of the hottest styles in jazz history, defined by daring, virtuosic solos and musicians trying to best each other in “cutting sessions.” Tierney Sutton lends her prodigious scatting and vocalise to the classic bebop song “Bernie’s Tune.” The lyrics were penned by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller who went on to compose dozens of rock and roll hits. Next is Cole Porter’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” a vampy, seductive song reimagined in Sutton’s witty and sardonic style. The song was originally written for a striptease in the musical Leave it to Me. 

Tom Scott’s “Napa Valley Suite” is one of his most recent compositions, which shows off Scott’s artistry as a performer and composer, and also the big band.

The 12-bar blues is the most-often-performed and recorded form in jazz history, with hundreds, if not thousands of songs composed in this idiom. No “hot jazz” show would be complete without the blues, and no one sings it better than Catherine Russell. “The Very Thought of You” is one of jazz’s most beautiful ballads, by the British composer and bandleader Ray Noble. A duet version by Catherine Russell and Shelly Berg captures the intimacy of the composition. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” is a facetious take on tortured love, first performed by Cab Calloway in a Cotton Club review called Rhythmania, and tonight performed by Catherine Russell.

There is no truer description of jazz than the one found in the title of Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing.” This new arrangement was written by Shelly Berg to feature all of the artists and The Barclay Jazz & Beyond Orchestra in its debut performance.