Friday, December 2, 2016, at 7:30 PM Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall
Yale Jazz Ensemble Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director presents
“Rhythm and Romance: The Songs of Fred Astaire and Cole Porter” featuring
Steve Ross and the
Yale Jazz Ensemble “All-Stars” Tonight’s concert was premiered in May 2016 in New York City’s famed Birdland Jazz Club. We are pleased to repeat it for the home audience. We all look forward to the return of the full Yale Jazz Ensemble in the spring of 2017. Steve Ross rose to fame as a cabaret entertainer during his lengthy sojourns at New York’s Ted Hook’s Backstage in the late 1970s, followed by years of residency at the celebrated Oak Room at the Hotel Algonquin. Steve has long delighted audiences on six continents with his shows, celebrating the Great American Songbook and saluting figures like Noël Coward, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Johnny Mercer, and Alan Jay Lerner. He was on the concerts and lecture roster at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for eight years, and has also hosted radio series on the BBC and NPR. In 1992, he starred off-Broadway in “I Won’t Dance – Steve Ross Sings and Plays Fred Astaire.” He made his Broadway debut in the revival of Noël Coward’s “Present Laughter,” playing the cockney valet and performing at the keyboard. In 2000, following Steve’s debut at The Plush Room, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “Attending a Ross performance is like opening a treasure chest of great, often rare, songs. No one performing today is his equal. They just don’t make ’em like this anymore.” He was hailed by the New York Times as “the suavest of all male cabaret performers,” and by the Times of London as “the smoothest cabaret act in the world.” Indeed, it would be difficult to identify a major composer in the American Popular Songbook canon whose works have eluded Mr. Ross’ delightful performance attentions. In light of this reality, in March 2015, Steve was presented with a MAC Lifetime Achievement Award, a singular honor reflecting his extraordinarily diverse and longstanding contributions to the cabaret genre worldwide. Steve’s current projects include preparing a theatre piece about Cole Porter and touring with the newly formed Steve Ross Orchestra. Further information is available at www.steveross.net.
Yale Jazz Ensemble “All Stars” 2016-17 Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director Violin David Yuan Loke MUS ’18
Trombone William Wortley MUS ’18
Alto Saxophones Hersh Gupta CC ’20 Mike Hoot BR ’17
Guitar/Banjo JJ Borja BK ’20
Tenor Saxophone Nick Indorf DC ’19
Bass Jeff Fuller ES ’67/MUS ’69
Trumpets Theo Van Dyck MUS ’18 Elliot Connors MC ’20
Drums Colum O’Connor BR ’18
*** Steve Ross appears in part through the generosity of the Rosamonde Safier Yale Band Endowment *** Upcoming Yale University Bands concerts: • Sunday, December 4, 2016. Yale Concert Band: An Old-Fashioned Holiday Concert. Feat. Sleigh Ride and A Christmas Festival (L. Anderson), Train Ride from Winter Holiday (S. Prokofiev), Polar Express Medley (Silvestri/Ballard), traditional music for Hanukkah, and a holiday singalong. 2:00 pm, Woolsey Hall. Free (accepting donations for local charity). • Friday, February 17, 2017. Yale Concert Band Winter Concert. 7:30 PM, Woolsey Hall. Free. • Monday, March 6, 2017. Yale Jazz Ensemble Spring Concert. 7:30 PM, Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. Free. • Friday, April 7, 2017. Yale Concert Band Spring Concert. 7:30 PM, Woolsey Hall. Free. • Sunday, April 9, 2017. Yale Jazz Ensemble: Tenth Annual Stan Wheeler Memorial Jazz Concert, with the Reunion Jazz Ensemble. 2:00 PM, Levinson Auditorium, Yale Law School (127 Wall Street). Free. • Sunday, May 21, 2017. Yale Concert Band Annual Twilight Concert. Ceremonial music on the eve of Yale’s Commencement. 7:00 PM, outside on the Old Campus, free. ****** Yale University Bands P.O. Box 209048 New Haven, CT 06520-9048 tel: (203) 432-4111 stephanie.hubbard@yale.edu www.yale.edu/yaleband