One thing audiences can be sure of when the iconic pops conductor Jack Everly takes the podium — there’s always a surprise factor built into his shows. And so it shall be, as always, when he conducts the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore Thursday in BSO SuperPops: Big Band Hit Parade.
| If you go |
| ‘Big Band Hit Parade |
| Where: The Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda |
| When: 8 p.m., Thursday |
| Info: $28 to $88; 301-581-5100 or strathmore.org |
Assisting him in this concert of Broadway songs and big band hits, will be the Capitol Quartet. With their saxophones in hand, they are widely considered among the most exciting chamber ensembles performing today.
“We have had the Capitol Quartet perform with the BSO on several occasions and they are phenomenal. They can play difficult classical repertoire just as well as grooving jazz or pop, said BSO spokeswoman Laura Farmer. I’m excited to hear this group tackle the big band hits.”
Judy McLane, currently starring on Broadway in “Mamma Mia!,” will lend her famous voice to a variety of hits from the swing era, such as “That Old Black Magic,” and Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” Finally, there’s no big band without the featured clarinet, and for that most important of components, popular clarinetist John Manasse has been called upon.
Now for the tease, direct from the maestro’s lips: “There are so many different dynamics of what we call swing big bands, but it’s a way of approaching any kind of music, really,” said Everly, who arranged many of the pieces in tonight’s show. “You can take what we know to be a very slow-moving piece, give it a swing-kind of arrangement, and suddenly you have a new piece of music.”
The orchestra plans to illustrate what a different arrangement does to one song.
“I chose a title this time, and we’re playing it twice in two drastically different arrangements,” Everly continued. “I’ve always wanted to do that, and this piece is very well known. I think the audience will be surprised.”
But what keeps the audiences coming are the standards, such as Gershwin’s “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” and Duke Ellington’s immortal tribute to the era, “It don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”
When asked, offhand which song will be the one to get played twice, Everly doesn’t skip the proverbial beat.
“Now that would be the surprise, wouldn’t it?”
