Showing posts with label Marilyn Maye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marilyn Maye. Show all posts

Sunday, December 07, 2008

As cool as Granny and Gramps


I think I should have liked to have been a young man in New York City in the '50s.


Or hanging out at the Drum Room in Kansas City. Double bourbon, rocks.

Then, it wasn't an extraordinary thing to hang out and listen to pure jazz singers like Marilyn Maye at a cabaret. Now. . . .

Story of my life -- born too late.

SATURDAY NIGHT, however, the missus and I got the chance right here in Omaha. We treated ourselves, as a Christmas present, to Maye's cabaret show at the Holland Center for the Performing Arts' "1200 Club."

This is Omaha, not Noo Yawk, and young hipsters haven't really gotten past indie rock yet, so we were nearly the youngest people in the room. OK . . . it's a good thing they've banned smoking indoors here, or oxygen tanks would have been blowing up all over. Is what I'm sayin'.

But you know what? The old folks know good stuff. They grew up with good stuff.

Marilyn Maye is 80 years young now, and she's still great stuff. When Sinatra was 80, his voice was pretty well shot. Maye at 80 still has some mad skillz.

So, I thought I'd find a video for you of Marilyn Maye back in the day, at the height of her powers. Another one is
here, from a 1967 episode of ABC's Hollywood Palace variety show . . . she's on toward the end of the segment.

Who knows, maybe some 20-something Omaha hipsters will read this, a light bulb will go on and we'll find ourselves as up-to-date as Kansas City. Or Noo Yawk.

Maybe, someday, they even might be as cool as Grandma and Grandpa.