FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

Marvelous Marv

A composer with more awards than you can shake a (conductor's) stick at...

SCOTTSDALE, Jan 8 - My body really didn't want to do it.  Not after nearly a 24-hour "red eye" trip from Hawaii.  But my mind kept egging me on.  "Yes, no, yes, no...  eenie, meenie, miney mo; catch a fish and let it go..."  

'Round and 'round my mind went all afternoon, trying to decide whether or not to keep a date with Marvin Hamlisch.

"What if I fall asleep?" my body kept fretting.  

"So what?" my soul played won the embarrassment.  "It wouldn't be the first time.  Remember when you once fell asleep in the front row during a live drama performance at a famed London West End theater?"

Sadly, my body did remember.  And sagged some more at the thought.  Like right now, it was the first night after an overseas flight.  Except that I was 20 years younger, and presumably more fit to overcome jetlag.  "So one more reason NOT to go tonight," my body argued.

"But you snapped right out of it and ended up enjoying the show," the soul persisted.

"I did," the body agreed.  "Maybe I could take a little nap?"

And so it was settled.  "Yes," was the final decision.  My soul had prevailed.  I went to the Friday night "Marvin Hamlisch at the Movies" concert at the Phoenix Symphony Hall after all.

* * *

Falling asleep?  Not a chance.  I was so wired that even two hours after the concert I could not go to sleep.  The acoustics at the recently-renovated Phoenix Symphony Hall are so fabulous that, seated about seven yards from the stage, it felt as if one were in the middle of the orchestra.  It was one of the most memorable musical experiences of my entire life.  I laughed and I cried.  As did many among over 2,000 people at the packed concert hall. 

But when I got to the parking lot I usually use, I thought there'd be 20,000 at the Symphony Hall.  "What's going on tonight?" I asked the attendant, suspecting the crowd could not be all because of Hamlisch.

"The Suns' game," he replied matter-of-factly.  

"It figures," I thought.  As the Suns are once again in first place of the NBA West division, they are hot again.  

But so was Hamlisch.  What can I say... Marv was truly marvelous.  He did everything but pull a white rabbit out of a hat.  He played the piano, conducted the orchestra, told jokes, bantered with the tenor, marketed the singer's CD... 

"Marvelous Marv" even came close pulling a rabbit out of a hat when he improvised composing a piano tune on the spot, based on random words that the audience shouted to him.  

The guy seated next to me, for example, wanted to hear a song on the theme, "Nursing Home Blues."  I looked at him.  He didn't look old enough to be in a nursing home.  But then, looks can be deceiving.  Sometimes even 30-something year olds can have nursing home spirits.  

Hamlisch looked at the guy, too, probably wondering the same thing, judging by his raised eye brows.  "You want me to do a tune on 'nursing home blues'?" Marv repeated.

"Nursing home blues... yes, please," my neighbor confirmed enthusiastically.  

"Okay," Hamlisch shrugged and sat down at the piano.  "Gallows Humor" would have been my title for the tune and the words that followed.  Everybody roared with laughter.

Besides a smattering of light moments like this, Hamlisch's talent and artistry shone through most of the evening's "serious" pieces.  He conducted the Phoenix Symphony with ease and panache to the levels of performance I have never heard before from these otherwise excellent musicians.

They opened with Hermann's "The Murder," from "Psycho," followed by "Tara," a heart-wrenching theme from "Dr. Zhivago."  During a salute to Gene Kelley that came next, Marv even had a real live tap-dancer simulating Kelley - by making the tap dance sounds the way they used to do it in the good old days of the radio - with shoes in his hands. J

It is not often that you get to hear a live vocal performance at a symphony concert, but the one that Mark McVey delivered as Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables" was one for the ages.  He's certainly had lots of practice.  As the star of the hit show, McVey has appeared in over 2,900 performances in New York, London, Detroit, Philadelphia and other major cities.

The concert also included the music by Scott Joplin ("The Sting"), selections from John Williams's scores for "Star Wars" and "Schindler's List," a tribute to Richard Rogers, and selections from Loewe's "My Fair Lady."  

Before playing the latter, Hamlisch relayed an alleged experience with that big 1964 Broadway hit.  The musical was sold out for three months straight.  When it moved to London, it became a smash there, too.  Tickets were as hard to find as hen's teeth.  Then one night, a stage manager noticed an empty seat at the West End performance.  He could not believe his eyes.  So he went into the audience and asked the lady next to the empty seat who was supposed to be there. 

"Oh, that was my husband's seat," she replied.

"So did he get suddenly ill?"

"No, he died."

"Oh, I am so sorry to hear that, Madam.  But you know, you can invite someone else to take his place.  You could have had another family member or a friend join you."

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because they're all at the funeral." J

At the age of seven, Hamlish was the youngest student ever accepted at the acclaimed Juiliard School of Music.  Best known as a composer, he has written major works for film, stage, recordings, and concert halls.  But on Friday night, as you can see, he acquitted himself well as a stand-up comedian, too.

The concert also featured favorite movie themes composed by "Marvelous Marv" himself, including "Sophie's Choice," and "The Way We Were," which won him the first of three Oscars.  In fact, Hamlisch made movie history in 1974, when he became the first individual ever to win three Academy Awards - in one night, in all three music categories! One for the song, "The Way We Were," another for the score to the same movie, and one for the adaptation of Scott Joplin's ragtime music for "The Sting."

The concert program said that he has also won four Grammys, three Emmys, a Tony, and three Golden Globe awards.

"But these bio's are usually written by a friend of the artist," Hamlisch discounted the write-up.  "So they always sound sweet and flowery.  They don't tell you, for example, that I've lost four awards in the last three years."

Everybody laughed again.

That's the way "Marvelous Marv" transitioned into some of the "losers" he included in the concert's program.  Some of them became bigger musical hits than many award winners.  With "losers" like that, who could still remember the jetlag?  In fact, I may have just discovered a new cure for it.