John Eaton, Washington’s legendary jazz pianist, singer, raconteur, historian and wit, tops off his third and final Barns performance of the season by releasing “Hooray for Hollywood,” his fifth recording for Wolf Trap Foundation.
If you go
‘Jazz, Blues and Broadway’
Where: The Barns at Wolf Trap
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Info: $25; 877-965-3872; wolftrap.org
It features the music of Harry Warren, the first American composer to write primarily for film. Eleven Academy Award nominees and three Oscars winners were among 800 tunes Warren wrote, not to forget “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” the first gold record. Most of the songs Warren contributed to 56 feature films are beloved by fans of the Great American Songbook, but few recall his name or the fact that he composed the score of “42nd Street,” the first blockbuster film musical, later a Broadway hit. Leave it to Eaton to champion this champion of America’s musical heritage in a recording destined to become a collector’s bonanza. It joins Eaton’s previous recordings for Wolf Trap, tributes to Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, the ’60s music revolution, and jazz artists Hoagy Carmichael and Fats Waller, all available online.
The recordings began as a TV series at a time when Eaton had been presenting erudite lectures at the Smithsonian Institution for 10 years illustrated by his keyboard expertise. During his series, which has brought joy to Barns at Wolf Trap audiences for the past 20 years, he decided to revive the music performed on TV as an audio program with a guest bassist.
A graduate of Yale, Eaton became a Steinway concert artist in 1988 and has been sharing his glorious music and perceptive insights ever since at jazz clubs, the Kool Jazz Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, Wolf Trap and at a command performance at the White House, as well as on National Public Radio and Radio Smithsonian. He grew up listening to the radio and enjoying the mainstream music of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. Today his extraordinary knowledge of the composers of that period and the stories behind their songs add zest to his popular concerts.
Saturday’s concert, titled “Jazz, Blues & Broadway,” ranges from the songs of Scott Joplin and W.C. Handy to Gershwin and Porter. Eaton will devote the first half of this show to a retrospective of Warren and the composers featured in the first four recordings of the series as he gives a nod to Arlen, executes a Warren medley, shares the jazz connection of Carmichael and Waller, and hails the Beatles. He will be joined for the second half by bassist extraordinaire Tommy Cecil.
“Tommy and I will make it up as we go along,” Eaton said, a smile in his voice. “Working with him is always an amazing experience. He’s one of a kind and gets better each time we play together.”
When he is not regaling local audiences, Eaton spreads his entertaining programs nationwide and will headline next at Santa Fe, N.M.’s historic Lensic Theater, the city’s performing arts center, at the invitation of cartoonist Pat Oliphant.
