Yvette Cason* with Kelly Park, Mark Wright, Joe McKinley and Mark Lee in Ella the Musical at Center Rep (Photo by Kevin Burn)
Ella, the Musical. Book by Jeffrey Hatcher. Conceived by Rob Ruggiero & Dyke Garrison. Musical Arrangements by Danny Holgate. Directed by Robert Barry Fleming. Starring Yvette Cason. Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic Drive in downtown Walnut Creek. 925.943.SHOW (7469). Or www.centerrep.org.
Through October 12, 2013
ELLA, The Musical is backed up by a top-notch jazz quartet
The PR notes suggest “. . . this swinging celebration is a must-see dazzling musical event for anyone who wants to fall in love with the magic and soul of Ella Fitzgerald all over again.” There is no suggestion for those of us who are not familiar with nor were in love with Ella and her music. This reviewer is one of the latter and is unable to comment on the ability of Yvette Carson to emulate Ella “The Queen of Jazz, the first Lady of Song.”
The show, under previous sponsorship has been around for about ten years with various revisions along the way. Center Rep’s version has a book by a talented triumvirate and is backed up by a jazz quartet of Mark Lee (Drummer), Joe McKinley (Bassist), Kelly Park (The Piano) and Mark Wright (Trumpet). They are by far the best of the evening even though their stints as actors taking part in the storyline will not earn them Equity Status,
The time and place is 1966 in a Concert Hall in Nice, France. Ella’s manager Norman Granz (Cassidy Brown in the underwritten part) suggests that jazz is passé, “scat” is in and she needs to add patter to her routine. She insists to that she doesn’t do patter but the remainder of the show is patter about her life interspersed with song. Some of those songs are the best of best written in her era by Duke Ellington, Hoagie Carmichael, George and Ira Gershwin, Benny Goodman, Johnny Mercer, George Shearing and Gus Kahn. An audience favorite is one written by Ella with Van Alexander, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” (I lost my yellow basket) that became her signature song.
Born in dire surroundings she ended up at the age of 17 living alone on the streets of New York. This was 1934 when she entered and won an Apollo theater amateur contest singing “Judy” (Hoagie Carmichael) and caught the attention of band leader Chuck Webb. They end up playing in Harlem hot spots. When Webb died she took on the management of the band and hooked up with Norman Granz and the rest is history. She became the Queen of Jazz and on Granz’s suggestion added “scat” to her style.
According to Wikipedia “In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.” Ella Fitzgerald is considered to be the greatest scat singers in jazz history.
Yvette Carson as Ella
Without making any comparison to the great Ella Fitzgerald, Yvette Carson has an expressive voice and to this untrained ear is a marvel at singing scat. One of best comes late in the evening with a smash rendition of “That Old Back Magic.” She has a fun duet with The Man (Anthony-Rollins Mullins) imitating Louis Armstrong with “Cheek to Cheek” (Irving Berlin) and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” (George and Ira Gershwin).
For the second act she comes out dressed in a fancy sequined dress and the band in tuxedos to add a bit of class to the evening that has down moments when her patter involves dramatic and depressing periods in Ella’s life. Everything ends on a up note with six smash songs including: My Buddy (Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson), A-Tisket, A-Tasket, (Ella Fitzgerald and Van Alexander), The Man I Love, (George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin), Something To Live For (Edward Kennedy Ellington and Billy Strayhorn), Blue Skies (Irving Berlin) and How High The Moon (Nancy Hamilton and Morgan Lewis).
At the curtain number of “Lady Be Good” (George and Ira Gershwin) the joint was rocking as Yvette Carson and the on-stage quartet received a partial standing ovation. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes including the intermission.
Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com
Yvette Cason* with Kelly Park, Mark Wright, Joe McKinley and Mark Lee
