A Tale of Two Sammys
By Rick Bird
Staff Reporter
The Cincinnati Post
First Peter Frampton, then Bootsy Collins, now Wayne Brady.
No, the three don't have that much in common - except they have
all hooked up with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. It represents a conscious
effort by the Pops to feature performers that might be considered "non-
traditional" for the orchestra.
"The idea is to get people that are current and relevant and
try something new, a different experiment," said Steven Reineke, the Pops'
principal arranger/composer. "Other orchestras are starting to do this and I think we should do more."
So, bring on Wayne Brady. The talented improv comic, who won an
Emmy for his work on Drew Carey's "Whose Line is It Anyway?" performs
this weekend with the Pops. But it's Brady's vocal chops, more than his
one-liners, that will be on display. Brady will perform what he likes to call a
musical "salute to the two Sammys" - soul singer Sam Cooke and song
and dance legend Sammy Davis Jr.
Brady has entertained audiences throughout his TV career with
amazing impersonations of performers. But the Pops appearance is the first time
Brady has ever performed with a symphonic orchestra in a show actually built
around his considerable singing talent.
Brady frequently performed his musical impersonations on the
Carey improv show, then on his own short-lived variety show in the summer of
2005 and on his daytime talk show that ran for two seasons where he picked up two Emmys for outstanding talk-show host.
Brady currently is the host of Fox's primetime game show
"Don't Forget the Lyrics!" where he has been known to join in for sing-a-longs with contestants.
While Brady may best be known as the improv comic, with a
long-running Las Vegas act, he also has musical theater credentials, having performed in a Broadway revival of "Chicago" in 2004. This weekend, he'll be crooning and channeling the soul singer and the showman.
"This isn't so much an improv show. It's about him telling
stories as they relate to him and about the music," said Reineke, who wrote
the musical arrangements for Brady and will conduct the Pops this weekend.
"There will be off-the-cuff banter. He's a charmer, a natural with the
audiences."
Still, it won't be as if the crowd will be calling out tunes for Brady and the Pops to perform on the spot. But Reineke said there are chances for some Pops' players to stretch more than the usual structured show. "There is some improv built in for certain players within the songs. They will jam out, especially on some of the Sammy Davis big band stuff," Reineke said. "There will be a lot of give and take between Wayne and our band."
The Pops' collaboration with Frampton in 2006 led to the Brady
show. Reineke earned a solid reputation for his arrangements meshing Frampton's hard rocking classics with a symphonic orchestra. It was the first time Frampton had taken that leap. Reineke and Frampton have taken the show on the road performing it with orchestras in Atlanta, Palm Springs and Indianapolis.
The Cincinnati Pops and Frampton revived the show at Kettering's Fraze Pavilion last summer. It just so happens that Frampton and Brady are both managed by the William Morris Agency.
"The William Morris people saw what we did with
Frampton," said Reineke, "so they thought this would be great to collaborate with Brady."
Reineke and Brady also plan to take the "Sammys salute" on the road as well, if this weekend's production is well received. Reineke said a few tunes from the show actually got a preview last July at the Hollywood Bowl when word got out he was writing the Brady show and promoters asked if they would perform a preview teaser as an opener for a Gladys Knight concert.
"That was a weird place to do a supposed sneak preview - at the Hollywood Bowl sold out for 16,000 people," said Reineke, who conducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra that night. Reineke said he is currently writing another Pops show for a "non-traditional artist," whom he could not name.
"We are always looking at new artists and thinking who we could build a show around. With the success of the Frampton show around the country, it was a natural to find other people."
Last summer, funk legend Bootsy Collins did what amounted to a
cameo appearance with the Pops, his first ever performance with an orchestra,
although there are apparently no plans to build an entire orchestral show
around Collins' funk sound.
(first published in The Cincinnati Post, Oct. 18, 2007)