When one thinks of Bob Hope, the word “singer” isn’t the first thing that pops into one’s head. Yet, during a career which spanned seven decades in vaudeville, motion pictures, radio and television, the unparalleled comedian and song and dance man introduced more than thirty popular songs, many of which became famous standards.

The New York Pops, founded in 1983 by the late NBC Music Director Skitch Henderson, assembled an extraordinarily talented team of performers to honor Hope for his contribution to American popular music and the Interpublic Group for decades of support for the Pops. Hosted by Steven Reineke, the music director and conductor, the program presented an amazing array of Broadway superstars—Tyne Daly, Christine Ebersole, Gregg Edelman, Maurice Hines, Angela Lansbury, Michele Lee, Kelli O’Hara and Tom Wopat—exceptional vocalists such as Jamie Barton, Tony DeSare, Michael Feinstein, Aaron Lazar and Ryan Silverman, and Cartier Williams, a 21-year-old dancer with an already impressive resumé.

There were over 200 other performers – Constance Chase and the West Point Glee Club, Bad Habit and The Ronald McDonald House Chorus, The Camp Broadway Kids, Matt Dengler, Randy Redd, Zak Resnick, The New York Pops Orchestra and guest conductors Michael Roth and Kathryn Hall.  Given the number of singers and musicians involved in this wonderful program, it was remarkable and a tribute to the professionals behind the scenes that the production came off so well.

The show opened with a stirring “When Hope Was There” (Mary Ehlinger & William Schermerhorn), sung by The Camp Broadway Kids and a trio of young singers (Dengler, Reed and Resnick) dressed in quasi-military uniforms.  Early in the program, three-time Tony Award nominee Kelli O’Hara and Aaron Lazar, one of a number of crooners on hand, joined in a warm-hearted “Two Sleepy People” (Hoagy Carmichael & Frank Loesser) from Thanks for the Memory (1939) sung by Hope and Shirley Ross in the film.

Christine Ebersole presented a fantastic rendition of Cole Porter’s “You Do Something to Me,” her sound rich as it shifted from wistful to jazzy, her full-bodied voice reaching to the back of the room. Dressed in an attractive black dress, Ebersole remained on stage looking admiringly at cabaret star Tony DeSare as he presented “I Can’t Get Started” (Vernon Duke & Ira Gershwin), which first appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936.

For “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (Jerome Kern & Otto Harbach), a standard from the 1933 Broadway production of Roberta, Michele Lee reprised her performance from a Bob Hope TV special in 1969 with great feeling, her voice still powerful. Lee stayed on stage, looking gorgeous in a startling white pants suit while Ryan Silverman slowly crossed the stage, serenading her with “Moonlight Becomes You” (Jimmy Van Heusen & Johnny Burke), a 1942 movie hit from a Crosby-Hope pairing Road to Morocco. Silverman, virtually a reincarnation of Dick Haymes, has a richness and resonance in his voice which is particularly effective in the low to middle register.

Tony Award winner Tyne Daly, who rotates between Broadway and television with apparent ease, performed “The Lady’s in Love with You” (Burton Lane & Frank Loesser) from Some Like It Hot, a film which preceded the 1959 Curtis/Lemmon/Monroe outing by twenty years.  Daly’s big theatre voice has always been suited to musical comedy, and she has the acting chops to make the words believable.  “Riding” a sad looking faux camel, Gregg Edelman and Tom Wopat trotted down the aisle dressed as Hope’s and Crosby’s delinquent characters in Road to Morocco and Road to Utopia singing “The Road to Morocco” and “Put It There, Pal” to a delighted audience.

Singer/ hoofer and Tony Award nominee Maurice Hines, looking limber and spiffy in white trousers and navy blazer, led an adorable troop of youngsters and Bad Habit, a guitar duo, in “Balling the Jack,” a tune that Hope sang with Ginger Rogers on television in 1962.  The children, all of whom are undergoing cancer treatment at the Ronald McDonald House, were ideal compatriots to a seasoned pro such as Hines, who’s unafraid to be upstaged by cute kids in the fine tradition of Danny Kaye and Gene Kelly.

There was more than enough variety to satisfy Bob Hope’s legion of fans.  Given all the years he spent away from home entertaining the troops in four wars, it was fitting that the West Point Glee Club, a mixed chorus of sixty, performed the songs of every branch of the armed forces, and that Grammy-nominated mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton joined with them in the performance of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”

Conductor Steven Reineke gave up his baton twice during the evening, to eight-year-old Kathryn Hall who directed the Pops with enthusiasm and style through the Gershwins’ “Strike Up the Band,” and to Brooklyn-born Michael Roth, the Chairman and CEO of Interpublic Group, conducting the orchestra in the lively rock & roll classic “On Broadway,” written by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

Throughout the production there were clips of Bob Hope in scenes from some of his best movies.  Along with a tap dancing Hope in a sequence from The Seven Little Foys (1955) was Cartier Williams, a young and versatile entertainer who danced up and down the stage with enough energy, charm and talent to light up the house.  Hope and Williams would have made a terrific team!

As to inspired partnerships, theatre legend Angela Lansbury had once been a guest on a Hope television special which aired when Hope was 88 years young. In one delightful sequence, Lansbury and Hope performed “Partners,” a funny adaptation of Cole Porter’s “Well, Did You Evah!,” an engaging number used in the film High Society, the line “What a swell party this is!” converted to “what swell partners we’d make!”

Michael Feinstein, a surprise guest, closed the show with the evocative “Thanks for the Memory” (Ralph Rainger & Leo Robin) sung by Hope and Shirley Ross in The Big Broadcast of 1938.  Feinstein, the final crooner to perform, sang with tenderness and feeling, a sweet reminder of Hope’s association with the poignant classic.  The entire cast came back for the finale, Porter’s “It’s De-Lovely,” a grand ending to a perfect night.  Steven Reineke and The New York Pops played spectacularly, every musician contributing his/her vast talent to honor the legacy of a cultural icon of incredible magnitude.

Angela Lansbury undoubtedly expressed what the entire cast and audience must have been thinking: “What a great gift Bob Hope had and he shared it with the world!”

Jerry Osterberg
Cabaret Scenes
May 2, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org