'Harry Who?'
Oscar-winning composer Harry Warren gets big props from a big band and 160-member cast at the Ambassador
By Bliss 04/22/2010
Question: Who wrote Etta James’ iconic ballad “At Last”? And “42nd Street”? And the Depression-era classics “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “We’re in the Money”?
Answer: Harry Warren.
“Harry Who?”
Longtime Sierra Madrean Lani Ridley Pedrini says that was the common response she received while coordinating a revue of Warren’s music, a splashy production being presented Saturday at Ambassador Auditorium. “Whenever I spoke to people about these great tunes that people know, they love, they sing, they’d always say, ‘Harry Who?’” she recalls with a laugh. “That’s why the show is named the way it is.
“I started out under a different title. But when I started to discover how many of the songs I really wanted in the show were Harry Warren’s, I made it about [his] music. I started to research history of Pasadena during the 1930s and ’40s and I started to overlay that into the narration, and then I started to overlay the golden age of Hollywood. He wrote for 115 films, and he had over 800 published songs, and another maybe 400 that were never published. He was nominated 11 times for Academy Awards.”
She describes the aptly titled “Harry Who?” as a “show within a show” that offers insight into Warren’s life. Warren earned three Oscars (for “Lullaby of Broadway,” “You’ll Never Know” and “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe”), but he’s never become a household name a la contemporaries like George Gershwin. The British label ASV released “The Song is Harry Warren” compilation in 1995, but his name still draws blanks — even though he composed music for numerous American standards, including “Jeepers Creepers,” “I Found a Million Dollar Baby (In a Five and Ten Cent Store)” and “An Affair to Remember.”
“[“Harry Who?”] does give a lot of facts about Harry’s life and about Hollywood and the films that he wrote for,” she says, “and about the songs and why they came about.” The 160-member cast will perform 19 of those tunes with a big band orchestra. They’ll also do what she calls “a cute little story inside the narration” about Warren’s “Home in Pasadena.” Turns out he did indeed visit the Crown City — almost 20 years after writing the song.
Pedrini obviously relishes the backstage rush of presenting Warren’s music. A veteran performer and producer, she credits her passion for music to her father, whose Pedrini music stores operated in Alhambra and Glendale for years. Net proceeds from Saturday’s shows will benefit “music departments and schools all over the San Gabriel Valley,” she says.
“They need the money right now. And they need the music. We all need the music, don’t we?”It won’t be easy listening, but it promises to be unlike anything else happening in Pasadena that night.
The Monday Evening Concerts series presents the Jack Quartet performing Georg Friedrich Haas’ “In iij. Noct.” at Neighborhood Church, 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday; $27 ($12 for students). Monday’s performance is sold out but seats are still available for Tuesday. Call (310) 836-6632 for tickets. mondayeveningconcerts.org.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT