“This is a good time to do the Great American Songbook,” says Kalamazoo Concert Band Music Director Tom Evans, and on Saturday, Feb 27 at 7 p.m., he makes good on that promise when the ensemble takes the stage at Chenery Auditorium for its “first-ever” pops concert. As always, admission is free.
Evans tells Cara Lieurance that the program idea came from a trumpet player who had long suggested the concept. After tucking the idea away for years, Evans finally found the right season — and the right soloist. Principal second flute player Linda Dickey connected him with New York-based cabaret vocalist Jennifer G. Roberts, a Farmington Hills, Michigan native with deep Michigan roots.
Roberts explains that cabaret, her specialty, is an intimate art form rooted in storytelling — typically performed for audiences of fewer than 75 people — quite unlike the 80-piece concert band backing her Saturday night. She traces the genre’s origins to tiny New York rooms, citing legendary vocalist Mabel Mercer as a foundational figure. Evans adds that the Great American Songbook itself grew largely from Tin Pan Alley, the early 20th-century New York hub where composers like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin first sold their music as sheet music to the public…