Last night was a lifelong dream come true: my Carnegie Hall debut!
Cecile McLorin Salvant had the sold-out audience completely rapt as she wove an all-enveloping emotional web for each song, accompanied gorgeously by Sullivan Fortner, David Wong, Kush Abadey, and The Knights, under the sublimely sensitive and empathetic direction of Eric Jacobsen. And what a treat to add special guest Chris Thile to my arrangements!
Thank you as well to everyone who came out to hear the program. This is the first time we have performed this program on this side of the Atlantic, and it’s wonderful to finally get to play it for a New York audience, where the songs of Ellington, Strayhorn, and Sondheim mean so much to people. The thrill of recognition that coursed through the crowd the instant Cécile sang “They say…” or “I used to visit… ” or “Someone to… ” — New Yorkers, in particular, have a deep, collective connection to the history of the Great American Songbook. Among Cécile’s many gifts is her uncanny ability to make us hear these familiar songs as if we are hearing them for the first time.
I’m so grateful to Cécile for entrusting me with her desert island ballads. Early in my career, I arranged several programs for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, but it has been a minute since I have had the opportunity to write for orchestra. I really missed it, and it is so satisfying to be back in this world — especially with an ensemble as fully committed to the music as The Knights! Working on these arrangements was a real labor of love, and I always take it as the highest compliment when the musicians enjoy playing their parts as much as I enjoyed writing them.
I would be remiss if I did not thank my orchestration teacher, the late, and dearly missed, Lee Hyla.
I also want to thank the great arrangers of American popular song who served as guiding lights throughout this process:
• Henry Mancini, the first person I ever saw conduct an orchestra.
• Nelson Riddle, whose arranging method book, Arranged by Nelson Riddle, was invaluable when I began to develop my craft and vocabulary.
• Sy Oliver, whose timeless advice “just like you need white space in graphics, you need the same thing in music” was never far from my mind.
• Billy May, for bringing the authentic sound of America into the orchestra.
• Quincy Jones, for his effervescent wit and sophisticated charm.
• Axel Stordahl, for modeling how to make the chart fit the singer like a glove — his swan song, the chart he wrote on “I’ll See You Again” set an impossibly high bar.
• Billy Strayhorn, whose love of singers, lyrics, and songcraft infused everything he ever did.
• Michel Legrand, who was forever doing the unexpected and making it feel inevitable.
• Gil Evans, whose own legendary arrangements of “Barbara Song” and “I Will Wait for You” always give me shivers and cold sweats. (Especially when I learned I had to arrange them myself!)
• And last but certainly not least, Gordon Jenkins, whose albums for Sinatra, Where Are You? and No One Cares, were the lodestones for this project, given to me by Cécile at the very outset. The emotional intensity that Jenkins elicits from Sinatra in these two records is a high point in 20th century artistry.
Deepest thanks to these masterful orchestrators and trailblazers for showing the way. They are all geniuses of American music and deserve to be celebrated as such.