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02/09/04
Honolulu Symphony Musicians Celebrate Grammy Nomination Despite Loss to Tony Bennett and K.D. Lang
AN INSIDE STORY FROM THE 2004 GRAMMIES HONOLULU:
FEBRUARY 8, 2004 - With a red carpet leading up to the
gala party at the Hawai'i Musicians' Association (Local
677 AFM) Union Hall where the Musicians of the Honolulu
Symphony Orchestra and one-hundred+ friends and supporters
had assembled, the announcement from Los Angeles that the
Rosemary Clooney CD, Rosemary Clooney: The Last Concert
had not won a Grammy was only a mild disappointment. The
trip had been a glorious ride.
Clooney's CD had been recorded in 2001 with the Honolulu
Symphony Pops Orchestra, directed and arranged by Honolulu's
Matt Catingub and featuring his Big Kahuna & the Copa Cat
Pack band. The recording itself as well as the Clooney Grammy
nomination had all been a long and rather interesting series
of great coincidences. With her death on June 29, 2002,
only a few months after her Honolulu concert, Clooney's
statement, preserved on the recording, now seems even more
meaningful: "Thank you for one of the best nights of my
life!" Jonathan Parrish, Acting Associate Principal Horn
with the Honolulu Symphony said, "It was such a great concert
and a privilege for us to perform with this great American
musical treasure."
As the CD's liner notes read, "If you believe in fate,
and I do, you'll understand how this album was made possible."
Clooney's longtime manager, Allen Sviridoff said, "The Honolulu
Symphony Pops wanted an album deal, so we were doing a test
recording to show the record company what they sounded like."
Meanwhile, Sviridoff had booked Clooney on a Hawai'i vacation,
at the end of which she agreed to sing a couple of concerts.
"We had no intention of making a Clooney record, but it
was incredible how beautiful the orchestra played and how
beautiful she sang," Sviridoff recounts. "...we didn't think
to issue it until after she passed - and we realized that
we had her last recording."
Yet another great coincidence was Clooney's putting God
Bless America - composed by her great friend Irving Berlin
- in the Hawai'i show. She did this because the concert
was just two months after 9/11 and she wanted to "honor
the victims, salute the heroes, and to invoke the spirit
of all Americans." She invited the Honolulu audience to
join in - and join in they did! That night - and captured
on the recording and CD - the audience sounds as though
the Honolulu Opera Chorus was in the Blaisdell. The coincidence?
As often as Clooney had performed the Berlin classic during
and after WW2, she had never recorded it.
In early January, 2004 and after the Grammy nominations
for Best Traditional Pop Album had been announced, another
nominee - Honolulu born international recording star, Bette
Midler - stunned the music industry with the announcement
that she was considering withdrawing her Bette Midler Sings
the Rosemary Clooney Songbook CD from the highly-coveted
Grammy competition. Midler told the Boston Globe, "I'm mortified.
I'd really like Rosemary to win that Grammy. I can't believe
I'm up against her. I'm going to look into withdrawing.
I just think it's bad form if I won. You know, she never
won a Grammy."
Clooney had indeed lost eight previous Grammy nominations
to Tony Bennett and (in yet another coincidence) Clooney
was once again up against Tony Bennett, whose A Wonderful
World album with K.D. Lang was nominated (and later won)
- as were Rod Stewart's As Time Goes By: The Great American
Songbook: Volume II, Barbara Streisand's The Movie Album,
and, most ironically, Bette Midler's Bette Midler Sings
the Rosemary Clooney Songbook.
Noting that her career commenced before the Grammy Awards
were instituted, manager Allen Sviridoff went on to recall
Clooney's previous Grammy nomination, for her 2001 album
"Sentimental Journey," which also featured Big Kahuna &
the Copa Cat Pack. That year the award went to Bennett's
Playin' With My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues in the
Best Traditional Pop album category. But that wasn't the
worst of it. "She had gotten bit by a mosquito and got encephalitis
and was hospitalized with a 107-degree fever," Sviridoff
says. "She was in a coma, but she came out of it during
the Grammys and said, 'Do you know what I was dreaming the
whole time? That eight Tony Bennetts were standing around
me with Grammys in their hands and handing me one." During
Bennett's acceptance speech Sunday night, he dedicated his
award to Clooney and he praised her artistry and her special
place in the grand pantheon of American popular music. There
wasn't a dry eye in the house.
After the loss to Tony Bennett was known, Michael J. Largarticha,
President of the Musicians' Association of Hawai'i, Local
677 of the American Federation of Musicians said, "Because
the Musicians in the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra recently
accepted a 20% pay cut in order to preserve the stellar
sound of this great orchestra, Ms. Clooney's Grammy nomination
could not have come at a better time for them. In fact,
without the Symphony Musicians and the Local allowing the
archival recording of the whole 2001 - '02 season by waving
the usual up-front payment, this golden opportunity would
have been missed entirely. Certainly with this Grammy nomination,
the whole world knows what we have known all along: the
Honolulu Symphony Orchestra is a world-class group of musicians
and deserves far more local attention and support. Anyone
who doubts this fact should listen to this remarkable Grammy-nominated
CD. "We predict that this recording is a prelude to even
better things and greater recognition for Hawaii's sensational
Honolulu Symphony Orchestra."
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