Big band sounds swing into USU to ‘Celebrate America’
Celebrate America 2014 ~ USU Taggart Center
Celebrate America 2014 ~ USU Taggart Center
Singers perform during the annual "Celebrate America Show" at Utah State University in Logan, playing this year on Sept. 8-12.
Celebrate America 2014 ~ USU Taggart Center
LOGAN — Maybe you grew up on “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” or maybe you’ve never heard of this Glenn Miller dude.
Either way, toes young and old alike will get to tapping as ”The Celebrate America Show: In the Miller Mood” swings into Utah State University.
“Even if they haven’t heard it before, once they hear it they like it because it’s timeless — there is no age limit on it,” said Brenda Anthony, founding director of the show that’s now in its 16th year.
The event — which features a dinner, show and dance — puts the music of Miller and other 1940s big band leaders like Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman in the limelight.
“You name the Glenn Miller big band song and they play it,” Anthony, a North Logan resident, said.
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This year’s theme is “New York, A Wonderful Town” and the Broadway-style review featuring the Stardust Singers and Dancers revolves around three Navy sailors who have 24 hours to spend in New York City during the 1940s.
One of the numbers is about their visit to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes; another involves a jaunt to a stage-door canteen where they meet the Andrews Sisters and Glenn Miller’s band.
“They end up at the Statue of Liberty and that’s where the power-message of the show comes … they realize why they’re fighting for America,” Anthony said.
After dinner and the stage show, guests can end the evening dancing to the sounds of the live 18-piece Larry Smith Orchestra, made up of music faculty members from Utah State University.
All in the all, the founding director said the evening aims to create a night in a 1940s club and offers entertainment “on a grand scale” that isn’t part of today’s culture.
“We don’t have those kinds of supper clubs anymore with live entertainment or that kind of music,” Anthony said.
A new feature instituted last year will continue in 2015 — the presentation of the Freeman Award to a different World War II veteran at each night’s performance. The veterans, who hail from either Cache Valley or Idaho, take the stage and share a brief memory of their WWII experience.
“There they stand, and they actually fought in World War II and they’re sharing with us … a couple of them had been there when the flag was placed on Iwo Jima,” Anthony said.
The award is named in honor of the late Lt. Col. Von W. Freeman, a Texas resident who was a fan and patron of the “Celebrate America Show.”
The show’s opening nights on Tuesday, Sept. 8, and Wednesday, Sept. 9, are actually dress rehearsals and are open only for group reservations for schools and students. Invited fifth-graders take part in the event on Sept. 8, singing some of the big band songs with the orchestra.
Tickets for dinner-dance shows on Sept. 10-12 are $62-$65; limited show-and-dance-only admission for those nights is $30.
Wendell Pace
The 18-piece Larry Smith Orchestra performs live during the “Celebrate America Show” at Utah State University in Logan.
One of her favorite musical numbers from the show is “Sing, Sing, Sing,” Anthony said, which features drummer Ned Smith of Seattle, Washington, on a song originally made famous by the late composer and percussionist Gene Krupa.
“(Smith) plays ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ like nobody I’ve ever heard, even Gene Krupa. … It just blows the roof off of the ballroom,” she said.
Contact reporter Becky Cairns at 801-625-4276 or bcairns@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @bccairns or like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SEbeckycairns.
PREVIEW
WHAT: ‘The Celebrate America Show: In the Miller Mood’
WHEN: Dinner shows, 6:45 p.m. Sept. 10-12; show/dance only, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8-9.
WHERE: Evan Stevenson Ballroom, Taggart Student Center, Utah State University, Logan
TICKETS: $10-$65. 435-554-1049, www.celebrateamericashow.com