A Night of Anything Goes - Featuring the Music of Cole Porter (1892-1964)

Swing / Big Band

Along with the weaning of American "classical" music from its European ancestry, exemplified in the works of Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, William Schuman, and others, the thirties also saw the flowering of the two other major American art/entertainment forms: the Hollywood musical and the American musical theater, as reshaped by George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Vincent Youmans, Arthur Schwartz, Vernon Duke, and Cole Porter.

From, I Love You to Love for Sale, the Anything Goes Big Band with vocalist, director and narration by Tom Lellis plus a Broadway vocalist present A Night of Anything Goes.

"From a satirist of high society to a smitten lover to a purveyor of verbal pyrotechnics, Cole Porter had so many sides to his songwriting personality" --The New York Times on Cole Porter.

"Your Big Band, under Tom Lellis's expert direction, provided just the right background for a waterside evening of informal fun, and we were delighted to note that the dance floor was continually packed...Your men and woman performed beautifully throughout...Jane (President of PassKey) joins me in thanking you for everything, and particularly your patience and good counsel in the planning stages. Bravo, Mr. Sonder, for a job well done." --Sue W. Frank, PassKey Associates

All performances are in honor of the late Clem DeRosa, the originator (along with Mark Sonder) and leader of the Glen Miller Orchestra.

Selections on the program will be chosen from the following:
Anything Goes
Don't Fence Me In
Got You Under My Skin
I Concentrate on You
I Get a Kick Out of You
I Love You
In the Still of the Night
It's All Right With Me
Just One of Those Things
Love for Sale
Night and Day
What is this Thing Called Love
You're the Top

About Tom:

New York based vocalist and conductor Tom Lellis is critically acclaimed as an original. "One of the most easily distinguished contemporary jazz singers on the planet" (Jazzradio.net, Berlin). Long known and respected as a musician's singer, his facets include pianist, composer and lyricist on recorded works by Jarrett, Corea, Hancock, Porter, Brubeck and others and a recording debut with Eddie Gomez and Jack Dejohnette.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Tom Lellis began singing professionally at the age of 15. By age 21, he was working on bills with Ray Charles and Gregory Hines and a 15-piece big band. After 9 years as a stand up singer, Tom began intensive piano studies with colleague, Bill Dobbins. Three years later he was singing, playing and opening for Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Jimmy Smith and other jazz greats. Tom, substituting for the original director the late Clem DeRosa, brought in the millenium at the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City conducting The Anything Goes Big Band.