What A Night!

My dear friends/family; the n's invited me to see the Pink Martini's at the Crystal Ballroom last night. Here is an article about the band and the director....what a wonderful story about following your passion and then it becomes your life work...Portland is very lucky to have them..they are originally from Portland so everyone here is very proud of them. Thank you L, H, & D for the fun night. It was our way of celebrating New Year's early... by the way---she looked like she was going to deliver her baby on stage to address a question in the following article. That kid is going to sing that's for sure. From the Harvard Alumni News: CHINA FORBES ’92 AND THOMAS M. LAUDERDALE ’92. Musicians, Portland, Oregon. Pink Martini’s 1997 debut CD, Sympathique, is a quirky amalgam of sounds: rhumba beats thump alongside Edith Piaf-styled tunes, with a bucketful of jazz on the side. But just when listeners think they’ve "got it," the music turns and robust, orchestral elements sweep in. "It’s global music, but not ‘world music,’" says Thomas Lauderdale, 32, the classically trained pianist who founded the 11-piece band in 1994 and is its musical director. "It is generally urban, kind of old-fashioned, pop-y, and it draws a lot upon the atmosphere of Hollywood in the late 1940s." However described, the band has immense appeal: the group has toured worldwide and performed with various symphonies around the country for the past five years. Two new CDs are in the works, says the quick-talking Lauderdale, one based on the Japanese concept of ukiyo, or "the floating world," which "refers to an artistic and cultural renaissance in Japan brought about by urban culture’s newfound wealth." The other, shepherded by lead singer China Forbes (Lauderdale’s Adams Housemate) is more "groovy urban." Both are due out next spring. Lauderdale’s flamboyant, eclectic nature explains much of the band’s musical mystique—and his frustration with how time flies. A few current projects: teaching music with Forbes—pro bono—at a Portland high school that lost its music funding; writing a nonfiction book about a woman who disguised herself as a man for 45 years; developing an artistic scholarship fund; and creating a snow globe of the Portland skyline ("Every city should have one of its own"). Half Asian, Lauderdale grew up as one of four adopted children—his siblings are black and Iranian—on an Indiana plant nursery. The family moved to Oregon (deemed "greener and more liberal") after his father, a Church of the Brethren minister, came out of the closet. (Lauderdale is also gay.) This atypical background, he agrees, may also account for his emphasis on "inclusion" and artistic and personal freedom—trans-Atlantic style. "Pink Martini and everything it does is very much wrapped up in the way I want to live—to be an ambassador and have a dialogue with people around the world," he says. "And to be inclusive—writing songs that are as appealing to little kids and grandmothers as to Hollywood moguls and people growing up on a farm in Iowa." The "embassy" is a central downtown building he bought to house the band’s headquarters and, he hopes, to host language classes, parties, film festivals, art openings, and other artistic and political activities. Upon returning to Portland after graduation, he played solos with the Oregon and Seattle symphonies and involved himself in various causes, including the fight against Oregon’s anti-gay rights initiative, Measure 13. Finding the bands at political events bland, he threw together a new group: Pink Martini, which often featured Lauderdale in drag. The band was a huge success with its campy, lounge-style renditions of Big Band tunes, and themes from 1960s television shows like I Dream of Jeannie. Very soon, however, the music, though still fun and danceable, became more serious. "Camp," Lauderdale explains, referencing Susan Sontag, "can only go so far because there is a negative bitterness to camp that, hopefully, we don’t have. In a very pure way, this music pushes forward the idea of hope despite all the sadness in the world." Leading the band also brought major changes in personal responsibilities. "I couldn’t be as flitty. I had to be more seriously engaged, diplomatic, and become more like a benevolent dictator. Music, like everything else that is artistic, is a very sensitive area for each of us, very personal," he says of the band members, who range from garage-band to symphony-level players. "I have to keep things on track, keeping the music pure as we become bigger, and not be distracted by the applause." Despite his disparate projects, Lauderdale’s life mission is clear: "Ultimately, I’m just trying to be good," he says. "I have probably the same goals other people have for their lives—to do good things and to find a reason to like oneself at the end of the day." For Forbes, 32, joining Pink Martini made "perfect sense." She had been performing folk tunes on the New York City club circuit (she recorded a solo album, Love Handle, and the theme song for UPN’s sitcom Clueless) when Lauderdale called. "I never saw myself as Peggy Lee or Julie London—doing torch songs and jazzy, sultry standards in front of 17,000 people with a 11-piece band behind me," she says. "But it turns out that it combines my experience in acting, musical theater, and singing." She took voice lessons, experimented with a sassier persona, and unleashed a voluptuous range of sounds. Life has run interestingly since then. "On the road, we’re constantly going and it’s exhausting. Sometimes the show doesn’t end until 2 a.m. and we have to leave at 5 a.m. to get on another plane," she explains. "The band wants to go out and meet people and dance. But one Brazilian rum drink or cigarette and I wake up with a sore throat, guaranteed. I am the one who wants to go to bed right after the show." In between shows and hours at the recording studio, Forbes says, "there is no routine. It’s very random. I don’t think a lot of people would like that, but I’ve gotten used to it." She recently began recording her own songs at home ("That muse doesn’t come to me all the time") and takes care of her two dogs. Forbes is newly married, to an optometrist (they met when she bought sunglasses at his store), and wonders when to have children. "Do I do it at a convenient time for the band or do I just do it when I’m ready?" she asks. "Our dream is for him to take care of the kids with me while I’m on the road. But we’re not sure how that would work yet….I’ll figure that out when it happens. The way I function is to act without thinking—I’m the opposite of Hamlet. I’m good at problem-solving when problems do arise. It’s worked well for me so far."