With NYC outside my window

Our last night in Vegas. I’ve adjusted if not warmed to the place, but I have to admit I loved our last show: The Rat Pack is back. It’s essentially a tribute show to Sinatra’s Rat Pack through recreating a notorious, hugely successful three week season at the Copa Cabana in Las Vegas in 1960. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy David Jr, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford were the Rat Pack. They were named by Lauren Bacall, wife of Humphrey Bogart. Lawford was brother in law to JFK and Marilyn Monroe makes an appearance, at least in this show, for a notorious Birthday song. They were in Vegas to make a movie and they partied and performed for three weeks and it became a signal of a new generation of cool with reference to race and aspiration and post-war experience. It’s an intriguing story and now dated, but with residual meaning. But it was also a musical feast. These are not the originals, of course, but I could still search for that sense of timing that Miles sought in each new Sinatra release. Or compare the three voices or the songs they sang. Or just feel drenched in the lovely swing of a decent 9-piece band (alto, alto/flute, tenor, 2xtrumpet, trombone, piano, bass, drums). Or experience the closest I’m likely to get to an experience of this era and these personalities. Some jokes were lame and plenty were out of sorts in today’s world. The sexuality was something my kids wouldn’t even conceive of, in these unrestricted days (think panties humour), and the ethnic quips were perhaps marginally acceptable given the background of the Jew, two Italians, a Black and an Englishman who uttered them. It’s all out of time now, but the audience was old enough to recognise it. Marilyn appeared for a visit to the audience to harass some man and his wife and to end by recreating the classic vent-blown dress scene. I still don’t warm to Sinatra but I could deeply enjoy his music. Sammy Davis Jr was the straight man justifying a position for his race, and Dean Martin was the drunk Italian with the lovely Neapolitan repertoire. Someone told me after that he actually didn’t drink, on stage or otherwise – it was all show. This era was like that. Dangerous and brazen and I wonder to what degree it’s influenced modern USA. Whatever, I may still see Las Vegas as one type of cruise or another, but as I write this with a view of (faux) NYC out my window, at least I can say the shows are good. I really enjoyed this and the dry martini to finish the night was just all part of this strange miasma which is this era and this place.

Cruising in dry dock

We’re here in Las Vegas. It’s a strange place. Not much in the way of jazz (despite a metro population of almost 2 million). We saw a show, Jersey Boys, and it was very well done and I enjoyed it with the songs and that falsetto and those harmonies despite a strangely disjointed script. (I’m told this is because the musical was developed from the recollections of each of the Four Seasons so moves through their points of view). I thought of Michael Azzopardi who was playing in the band for the show in Australia. You must have had fun, Michael. I found a page for the local jazz society and “jazz legend Gus Mancuso” was playing but the dates didn’t work for us. That would have been interesting: he played bop on a baritone horn (not bari sax) and had two LP releases in the mid-’50s and was promoted by Cal Tjader. Otherwise, we walked the glitz of Las Vegas and looked at blank faces and shorts’n’thongs and overdressed young girls. I expected there would be plenty of buskers (no, just beggars) and musos in bars (no, very few live musos but much piped dance music). Here are pics of a trio in Piazza San Marco (but without campanile or even a church frontage). I heard an Asian female gondolier singing quite beautifully. We were off to hear a Rat Pack tribute singer fronting a trio in another casino. The program was changed and we got piano man Dave instead. He was good but didn’t sing much of the “old stuff”. Maybe we didn’t tip enough: it’s not something we Australians understand. His field was Elton John / Billy Joel territory, although he extended to classic rock and Neil Diamond and John Denver and Georgia and Fly me to the moon as oldies. I really admire these guys with decent voice and piano and stage presence. His repertoire didn’t reach to Stella but it was large nonetheless and he entertained well. The best of Vegas for me was the helicopter ride out … to the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon, landing half way down a canyon that’s virtually a kilometre deep. Difficult to comprehend, but the GC gets deeper than this. This is Nevada and it’s an arid place, surviving on the Hoover dam and they say that’s losing water. Our pollies deny all that, of course, and it will probably fill once or twice again before it’s finally parched, but I wouldn’t voluntarily choose that path. Las Vegas is not really so strange. It’s just corporate consumer capitalism at its apogee. Or like an oversized stranded cruise liner with mega cabins. It’s strange walking narrow footpaths over long distances in searing heat next to 8-lane highways then escaping into huge pomo-ironic spaces filled with gaming and brand-name shops and faux lux (knowing the real luxury is a few floors above). I’d just heard an author being interviewed on National Public Radio here and he spoke of his new book about a person stranded in Dubai (The dog / Joseph O’Neill), "a place you could enjoy if you liked having maids and spending your time in swimming pools and shopping malls". It resonated with me, here, in Las Vegas.