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08/31/2016 09:30 AM“Oh, play that thing!” Vince Giordano called out to his reeds, three men in black tuxes who stood, raised their clarinets, and played as one—backed by a powerful brass section, drums, banjo, piano, violin, and tuba.
Down in the front row, a man in full swing attire—from the fedora and watch chain down to the spectator wingtips—grinned and tapped his toes.
Close your eyes and you’re transported to Duke Ellington’s Cotton Club in the Harlem years.
The George Flynn Classical Concerts kicked off the 2016-2017 concert season on Aug. 21, with a spirited crowd and one of the world’s foremost traditional jazz musicians, bandleaders, and scholars. Grammy-award-winning Vince Giordano and his 11-piece band, the Nighthawks, played to a packed auditorium at Andrews Memorial Town Hall in Clinton. Every seat from the front-row orchestra to the back of the balcony was taken.
The Nighthawks’ playlist, meticulously transcribed from the original recordings (minus the scratch of the old Victrola) ranged from hot jazz, ragtime, and swing to a waltz set in foxtrot tempo.
“The concert was one of our most successful shows ever, with every seat taken plus a few folding chairs,” said Jim Beloff, vice president of the George Flynn Classical Concerts trust. “It was a great kickoff to the new season.”
Vince Giordano, who has performed at the Newport Jazz Festival and Jazz at Lincoln Center, is also regularly featured in period films and TV series, including Boardwalk Empire, Carol, The Cotton Club, The Aviator, Finding Forrester, and several Woody Allen movies. He is currently at work on a film starring Robert DeNiro, and his band plays every Monday night at New York City’s Iguana Latin-style club.
Both a musician/bandleader and historian, Giordano interacted freely with his audience during every number and introduced each song with trivia about when or where it was first played, what instruments and sounds to listen for, and why critics of the day either loved or hated it.
He joked about the flatulent cow coaxed out of a slide trombone (“I don’t use milk products anymore for that reason”) in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s “Livery Stable Blues,” where the ensemble playfully mimicked the sounds of barnyard, from a horse’s whinny to a rooster crowing.
The Nighthawks demonstrated how the same song could be played in two different styles, morphing from an original jazz piece to a swing version popular a decade later, and regaled the audience with dozens of high-energy numbers with names—“Maple Leaf Rag,” “Jazznocracy,” “Sugarfoot Stomp,” “Potato Head Blues”—as animated as their sounds.
The George Flynn Classical Concerts season continues on Sunday, Oct. 2, with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra playing at the brand-new Morgan School. For the full list of upcoming events or to request free tickets, visit http://georgeflynnclassicalconcerts.com/upcomingconcerts.html, call 860-669-1208, or follow them on Facebook.