By Katherine A. (Katherine) on Tuesday, March 13, 2001 - 02:40 pm: EditI just got back from Charlotte NC, visiting my parents. They had had tickets for the Boston Pops on Sunday and got me a ticket too. Come to find out that the Pops were doing their "Spring Swing Tour" featuring the Jivin' Lindy Hoppers, a dance group from London.
The concert was very good, as you would expect from the BP (Keith Lockhart, conducting). Normally I don't think jazz is very good in an orchestra setting, but the BP did several tunes with very small (7-10) subsets of players (including Black Bottom Stomp done with a group of 7). Kelly Eisenhour sang several tunes and was very good (including Imagination and I Can Cook Too). Even when the full orchestra played, I thought the jazz came through pretty well. Other tunes were Clarinet Concerto (Shaw), One O'Clock Jump, In the Mood, I'm Beginning To See The Light, a tribute to Harry James, and more.
The Jivin' Lindy Hoppers danced three routines. The first was entirely Lindy aerials, done with 6 dancers. Lots of fun to watch. The second was partnered "ordinary" Lindy Hop. (My mother said, "YOU can do THAT?" I said, "Well, yes, sort of, but not like THAT"). And the third routine was seven dancers, unpartnered, (4 women and 3 men) and I don't know enough about jazz dance to say what it was, but it was fun to watch. The finale of the last dance was where two of them grabbed the conductor between them and back-flipped him! I wondered how many times he landed on his backside practicing that! A very expensive guy to be throwing around...
At any rate, it was a pleasant surprise to get the see the Boston Pops do swing and to see the Jivin' Lindy Hoppers.
Katherine