Now for some really good news. Max Raabe and his spectacular Palast Orchester are returning to Carnegie Hall!
(Photo by Olaf Heine)
The sleek, slick white tie and tailed Herr Raabe and his ensemble of 11 suitably black tied, big band musicians (plus one gorgeous, evening gowned fraulein violinist) wowed critics and audience alike when they appeared on the Perelman Stage of a packed Stern Auditorium back in 2008.
Come Thursday, March 4, they'll be offering New Yorkers another razzle dazzle night of their captivating specialty: the music and lyrics of 1930s romantic pop music - all performed in original rhythms and authentic arrangements with vocals by the super smooth Raabe.
Ever fantasize you're back in an elegant Art Deco nightclub listening to Paul Whiteman and his band play while Rudy Vallee sings and you dance cheek-to-cheek with your latest love ? Or perhaps you're in a smoke-filled Berlin cabaret in the pre-Hitler 1930s watching Marlene Dietrich smilingly seduce a very willing crowd? Inspired by the idea? Fancy the fantasy? Then a concert by the Palast Orchester is for you.
Raabe and his imported ensemble are a musical time capsule, an absolutely authentic reproducer of the sophisticated dance and film music so beloved from the 1920ss and 1930s on. And not only by American audiences, but by much of the world - especially in Raabe's native Germany. The Weimar Republic may have been ill-fated, but it was culturally rich, faithfully copying American hits but also giving birth to its own eternal romantic gems (e.g.Ich Kusse Ihre Hand, Madame, Du Bist Meine Greta Garbo, Mein kleiner gruner Kaktus).
Hitler smothered Germany's musical magic by formally banning the sound and words of a genre the Fuhrer declared racially impure ("too many Jewish and Negroid influences" ). Just to make certain, some of Germany's best pop composers and musicians were among the first to be shipped off to Nazi camps.
Still, the melodies lingered on in Germany throughout and after World War II - just as they have in America. And they found an enthusiastic new audience among today's German young public when Raabe, a wide ranging baritone who started out as an opera singer, founded the Palast Orchester in Berlin in 1985.
I've had the pleasure of attending one of his sold-out orchestra concerts in Germany. His all ages audience went absolutely wild as Raabe, who sings in a falsetto, and his 12 piece band recreated the tap-your-toes dance tunes of Fred Astaire, the melodies of the Andrews Sisters, the romantic ballads of Kurt Weill and Bing Crosby, the enticements of Marlene Dietrich and Bille Holiday, the rhythms of Benny Goodman - and even the fun tunes of Betty Boop as well as Germany's own famous 1930s a cappella quintet, the Comedy Harmonists.
Back in 2008, the audience at Carnegie Hall reacted with similar enthusiasm. It's bound to do the same this time round. To add extra fun to the night - and set yet more realistic mood - Carnegie Hall is featuring a "a special attire contest", inviting the audience to come to the March 4th concert dressed "in your best vintage garb from the 1920s, 30s or 40s."
Raabe, who rolls his rrrrs and whose charmingly cheeky rendition of the songs is key to much of the evening's delight, says the repertoire for his current nationwide American concert tour is quite different from the last. "We have an arrangement of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" that hasn't been heard in decades," he told me by phone from San Francisco. There's also a 1930s tango rendition of Georges Boulanger's "My Prayer" (definitely not the 1950s Platters' version) and one of Raabe's own personal special favorites, Cole Porter's classic "Miss Otis Regrets".
As Daryl Miller of the Los Angeles Times put it last week after the Raabe concert there : "Singing sometimes in German but often in English, Raabe floats notes -- downy, vibratoless -- in the air. Muted horns are heard from what seems far away, across time... The air dances. The world is in love."
(Photography by Jennifer Taylor)
Max Raabe & The Palast Orchester,
Carnegie Hall, 8:00 PM
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Balance of remaining Palast Orchester U.S.Tour
Wednesday, February 24 Portland, USA
Alene Schnitzer Concert HallFriday, February 26 Akron, USA
EJ Thomas Hall lSaturday February 27 Erie, USA
Mary D`Angelo Performing Arts Center at Mercyhurst CollegeSunday February 28 Cleveland, USA
Gartner Auditorium
Cleveland Museum of ArtTuesday, March 2, Utica, USA
Stanley TheatreFriday, March 5, Philadelphia, USA
Merriam TheaterSaturday, March 6 Boston
Paramount TheaterSunday, March 7, 2010, Atlanta
Fox Theatre