JACK’S BACK! AT 92 HUTTON STILL HITTING HIGH NOTES OF HIS LIFE JUNE 20 AT OPERA HOUSE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — “When I’m 92!”
Jack Hutton knows that tune all too well.
A decade older than Paul McCartney — one half of the Beatles still performing — the “cute” Liverpool lad made “When I’m 64” a goal to live for.
Hutton has surpassed that milestone by 28 years ago and is still pounding out ragtime on the piano as if he were 64 — or yet younger.
Well, he’s back at the Opera House June 20 for another “farewell tour” with his very good friends and extraordinary fellow musicians Ross Woldridge, Will Wilson, Ralph Johnston and Bob Muir.
“We are now roughly one month away from the last Jack Hutton and Friends concert and I wonder whether you might be kind enough to remind your readers that this is happening,” he emailed me this week.
“After setting an attendance record at our first concert on July 26, 2003, where general manager Fred Schulz had to turn away 20 to 30 people despite creating an illegal extra front row, we have sold out at least twice since then.
“But folks now tend to buy their tickets during the last week or 10 days before the show. Fewer than 100 tickets were sold before our last two shows right up to the last 10 days. And we had a great house last year,” says the genial old gentleman who celebrated his birthday April 19.
“The current suspense is much greater this year, because of the low number so.
“What folks do not know is that we have one of the best programs we have ever had.
“It’s also a rare celebration of Irving Berlin, who George Gershwin called “the finest song writer who’s ever lived.
“We will be playing six of Berlin’s top compositions, including “I’ll Be Loving You Always” and “Easter Parade.”
The audience will be singing along on three of the six, including those two.
Irving Berlin’s musical journey
Hutton added the audience will hear the incredible story of Berlin’s musical journey. Born in Russia in 1888, he went to New York City with his family at age of five. His Jewish cantor father had to accept a low-paying job to support his family and his children got part-time jobs.
Berlin (named Israel at first) started hawking newspapers on the streets at 10, listening to music from bars and restaurants all around him. His father died when he was 13 and he had to quit school to earn more money on the streets. He discovered passers-by threw more pennies after he started singing popular songs of the day. When he became a singing waiter in a restaurant he soon started picking out his own tunes on the restaurant piano.
At 19 Berlin composed “Marie From Sunny Italy.” The restaurant’s ragtime pianist wrote the tune down and he and Berlin each earned 37 cents in royalties. Berlin soon taught himself to play the piano. Incredibly he played only in the key of F sharp, which meant playing mainly on the black keys. From then until he died at 101 he only played in the key of F sharp.
Irving Berlin’s life story sounds more incredible with each passing year. He kept on composing new melodies, which others transcribed for him. He joined a music publishing house, but kept on composing melodies — although he was unable to read music for years.
In 1911, he composed “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” which almost overnight became a global hit. At 22 he was a fast rising star in the music world.
It’s the second composition Hutton and Friends will play featuring the 92-year-old in his trademark red-striped shirt, suspenders and bushy eyebrows.
“There is much more we will tell you during our two-hour show, including how Berlin was able to play in different keys by playing a piano that had a transposing lever below the keyboard that could be adjusted with his fingers or knees to play in different keys.
“You will hear a love story that saw Berlin married at the age of 36 to the 21-year-old daughter of one of New York’s richest tycoons. The father was aghast at the thought of his daughter marrying a much older Jewish ragtime composer whose first wife had died many years earlier.
“In 1926 before Berlin and Ellin wed, they hid away on a cruise liner while reporters searched for them around the world. On the morning after their city hall marriage he presented the music for “Always” to his bride on the cruise ship. Ellin earned more than $100,000 in royalties before she died at age 85.
“There is much more to tell our audience but they have to be there on June 20 to hear it.”
Hutton promises the quartet will play more popular song of the era, including tributes to Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, early jazz masterpieces from the 1920s and 1930s.
“I got in contact with Berlin’s eldest daughter in the mid-1990s and will share what she told me.”
Best news band backing Jack
The best news, he says, is that all the musicians from our last will also be back to share the stage.
Woldridge, the finest jazz clarinet player in Canada, Wilson, a virtuoso on both banjo and guitar, Johnston, who plays an 1850 upright string bass from France, and trombone player Muir who has led the annual jazz cruise down the Moon River for more than a decade.
“I am also going to talk about the night that a few members of Mart Kenny’s band walked naked through Bala after a concert at Dunn’s Pavilion. You have to join us to hear the rest of that.”
Sounds like an always fun, interesting and entertaining way to spend a Friday night in Gravenhurst. One of the highlights of the Opera House calendar.
Catch Hutton and Friends as Jack eyes the decade ahead while striding toward the age Berlin died when the Bala legend hopes to still be playing ragtime for Muskoka audiences.
For tickets go to https://tickets.gravenhurst.ca/TheatreManager/1/tmEvent/tmEvent591.html
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