Ella Fitzgerald. Sarah Vaughan. Lena Horne. Billie Holiday.
The Kaye Playhouse came alive with the music of these four jazz legends October 8 as Hunter’s “American Voices” series paid tribute to “Women in Jazz” — bringing Broadway star Lilli Cooper, recording sensation Maya Days, jazz staple Hilary Kole, and alt-jazz artist Madeleine Peyroux to sing standards associated with each.
The singers swung, belted, scatted, and crooned through American Songbook classics including “Them There Eyes,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “Stormy Weather,” and “God Bless the Child,” for a concert that was by turns rollicking, sultry, and haunting.
With music by Ryan Keberle’s Big Band Living Legacy Project — a 15-piece orchestra featuring the greatest big band musicians in the world, many of whom played with the definitive bands led by luminaries such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Thad Jones, Charles Mingus, and Gerry Mulligan — the concert celebrated the reopening of the Kaye, which had been closed for almost a year for upgrades. The venerable Upper East Side theater, inaugurated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, is a cornerstone of public programming and artistic life at Hunter and the Upper East Side. It hosts more than 200 performances each season and welcomes some 100,000 theatergoers annually.
The concert also announced the establishment under President Nancy Cantor’s leadership of the Jazz Archive at Hunter, with the acquisition of a significant collection of Holliday’s papers donated by philanthropist Robert Raben.
“Cultural historians now agree that jazz was the first art form, originally created in America,” said the master of ceremonies, Provost Scholar of the Arts and Humanities Paul Alexander. “In the early decades of jazz, most of the instruments were played by men. But the voice of jazz belonged to a woman, frequently an African American woman, a fact made even more remarkable because the country was still in the heat of Jim Crow. Noone represented this tradition better than Ella, Sarah, Lena, and Billy, four singers so famous in the jazz world you only need to say their first name.”
Alexander said that Fitzgerald, Vaughan, Horne, and Holliday all knew each other and supported each other’s music.
The concert also showed how Hunter is introducing a new generation to the riches of jazz. “American Voices” Student Committee members Julie Rosenberg, Dara Hyacinthe, and Camil Luciano gave biographical introductions about the four legends, describing their accomplishments and travails. Alexander wrote the show, which was edifying as well as entertaining.
The singers told stories about how the women of jazz had influenced their work and complimented the stylings of the band and its conductor, Keberle.
“It’s a privilege to hear these charts live,” Peyroux said, referring to the historical arrangements used by the orchestra with its lively brass section.
Earl McIntyre on trombone, Brian Pareschi on trumpet, Yasushi Nakamura on bass, and Adam Birnbaum on piano took scintillating solos.
Keberle said he jumped at the opportunity to present the Big Band Living Legacy Project in “American Voices.” He formed the band about 15 years ago, when it struck him that the defining voices of big band jazz — not just the famous soloists, but the hundreds, even thousands of sidemen who helped shape an entire musical language — were disappearing. This ensemble features some of the last surviving members of the great orchestras of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and others, performing the definitive arrangements from the golden era of jazz.
“The goal is to give younger generations the chance to experience this music live and in person, learning to speak the big band language fluently — straight from the source,” Keberle said.
Alexander launched “American Voices” in 2023 to celebrate American artists, writers, and cultural icons. To date, “American Voices” has honored the enduring legacies of, among others, Holiday, The House on Mango Street author Sandra Cisneros, and Black Arts Movement pioneer (and Hunter alum) Sonia Sanchez ’55 — offering rich insights into the talents that define our culture. Alexander is the author of Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year (Knopf, 2024).
