Union Theater transforms into vintage nightspot in Club Swing
Drop cloths are removed, the neon marquee flickers to life and Club Swing radiates in the glow of its former splendor.
For one last night.
Because the wrecking ball will make way for the new, the modern the next morning. And the once popular nightspot will be forever gone. Yet not before Five By Design steps out of the past and onto its stage to resurrect the glory of a bygone era.
But has that time really passed?
Think about it. No matter what genre of music tops the charts on popular radio, swing music still has a way of defying age and traveling through generations. Even the youngest of audience members can’t resist tapping a toe to the beat.
And swing definitely had the best of beats, one that put — and still puts — its dancers through a workout.
Five By Design will have it all when taking the LSU Student Union Theater stage on Wednesday, Feb. 8. The concert is part of the LSU Performing Arts Series.
And yes, the vocal quintet will be performing in the Union Theater. Club Swing is a fictional place, and the story surrounding it sets up Five By Design’s show, called Five By Design presents Club Swing.
The story goes something like this: Club Swing was built in the heyday of swing. As construction sounds filter through the Hotel Crosby, a news report echoes the impending demise of the once popular nightspot.
But before the wrecking ball falls, Joe Sullivan, the club’s former mixologist, pays a final visit to the establishment. That’s when drop cloths are removed and lights flicker to life.
And the show begins.
“It’s a community show,” Willis Delony said. “It serves the students on campus by bringing them a different form of musical entertainment, but it’s also a family show, one that the community will like.”
Delony is the interim director of the LSU School of Music. He’s also conductor of the Minnesota-based Five By Design. He first met the group when it performed with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra 12 years ago.
Delony played and conducted from his piano for the group at that time, just as he will on Feb. 8. Joining him will be a seven-piece jazz band made up of LSU School of Music faculty members Bill Grimes on the upright bass and Brian Shaw on trumpet; LSU graduate students Paul Gries on trumpet and Stephen Menard on trombone; and two saxophonists from New Orleans.
“They bring their own drummer,” Delony said.
Five By Design, meantime, is a vocal quintet featuring Lorie Carpenter-Niska, Catherine Scott, Kurt Niska, Michael Swedberg and Terrence Niska.
The quintet was inspired by the music of the Great American Songbook and has created several productions that showcase the group’s “signature, aged-in-wood harmonies.” Today, the group is among the top symphony pops attractions throughout the United States and Canada. In September 2011, Wisconsin Public Television recorded a six-camera shoot of Club Swing and it is set to air as a pledge special in August. The ensemble is also making plans to premiere their newest production for the 2012-13 season, Ultra Lounge.
“Club Swing actually is a concert they performed with the symphony in Baton Rouge,” Delony said. “It was commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony. Five By Design has been doing that show since, and I’ve traveled around with them.”
The success of Five By Design’s Club Swing lies with the group’s penchant for detail. The quintet painstakingly searched hundreds of vintage clothing stores for just the right authentic fashions required for the show’s multitude of costume changes.
And then there’s the opening of the show, which puts the audiences into Club Swing. The stage design evokes the ambiance of a nightclub cut from a vintage movie. The club’s marquee floats above the orchestra surrounded by palm trees, an art deco bar and linen covered tables. A reminder, perhaps, of the palm tree-covered Coconut Grove of Los Angeles’ historic Ambassador Hotel? The Los Angeles Unified School District bought the hotel in 2005 and demolished it to make way for construction of a learning center.
Gone is the place where everyone from Frank Sinatra to Diana Ross performed. Only the hotel entrance and east wall of the Coconut Grove remain. Sad, right?
No need to mourn. Five By Design’s Club Swing keeps the memory of such places alive.
From the frenetic paced opening of Benny Goodman’s “Bugle Call Rag” to the show’s blockbuster finale featuring Louie Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” Five by Design celebrates the swing movement from 1937-1955. The repertoire embraces a rich harmonic treatment of Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa” while a Steve Lawrence and Edye Gorme-styled arrangement of “Somethin’s Gotta Give” foreshadows the club’s closing, paralleling the decline of swing in the 1950s.
Each decade highlights the songs, events and personalities that defined the era. Whether listening to Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” or the musical depreciation of Spike Jones’ “Cocktails for Two,” Five by Design’s Club Swing personifies American popular culture during the swing era.
Five By Design is celebrating more than 20 seasons in the performing arts and symphony pops market. With its productions of Radio Days, Club Swing, Stay Tuned and Cool and Swingin’, the vocal quintet has appeared with more than 175 symphony orchestras and more than 500 performing arts centers throughout the United States and Canada.
“This is going to be a fun show,” Delony said.
One that will travel back in time through the memories of Club Swing.