![]() ![]() ![]() "I listened to the demos but didn't really like most of the songs they selected, so I found some better songs from Japanese 1969 catalogs and then also encouraged them to think broader," said Lauderdale, producer of the album. When Forbes was not singing much, the band performed with other singers, including one collaboration that led to its newest album, the wonderfully odd and addictive 1969, with Japanese singer Saori Yuki, who is sometimes called the "Barbra Streisand of Japan." Initiated by a record company in Japan, the concept was to give the Pink Martini treatment to Japanese pop hits from 1969, when Yuki made her debut. In 2006, Pink Martini and Forbes made their first Tampa Bay area appearance, playing three concerts with the Florida Orchestra on a pops program, one of the best the orchestra has ever done. "Her recovery has been total, which is a great relief to her and our audiences." "China is in exceptional form these days," Lauderdale said. She was off stage for most of 2011 because of surgery on her vocal cords. "I was looking for more of a '50s kind of vibe."Ĭhina Forbes, the group's longtime singer who got to be friends with Lauderdale when both were undergrads at Harvard, is back and slated to perform in Tampa tonight. "It was kind of like an attempt to be a melting pot and to create an atmosphere where people who didn't agree politically could sit together and have a good time."Īmong Lauderdale's influences were "older Afro-Cuban bands like Perez Prado and Tito Puente, more old-fashioned than contemporary salsa, which is almost like modern jazz meets salsa," he said. "The idea was to create a band that could play at political functions and would have a broad appeal so it would appeal to conservative people, liberal people, older people, younger people, Democrats and Republicans," he said by phone from Savannah, Ga., where the band was in a festival last week. It all started, as Lauderdale tells the story, in 1994 when he was involved in politics in Portland, his hometown, and formed a band to play at fundraisers. It's likely to be a wildly eclectic mix ranging from the Latin love song Amado Mio to a classical violin showpiece by Sarasate to Tuca Tuca in Italian to fan favorite Hey Eugene. ![]()
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