Classic pop composer Burt Bacharach brings 50-plus years of make-out music to the Basie stage on Friday… after SPANK! delivers some Fifty Shades of parody on Wednesday.
Call it Jet-Set Pop; a smoothly stripped-down and swinging sonic signifier of a (real or imagined) time when the wars seemed colder, the winters somehow warmer, and the way of getting where you’re going — whether by 727, Galaxie 500, lunar module or Merry Prankster bus — was half the glamor and excitement in itself.
Songs like “The Look of Love,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “What the World Needs Now,” “This Guy’s in Love With You” and “I Say a Little Prayer” traded in the syrupy mush of Easy Listening (and the Legion hall polka-party of Mitch Miller and Lawrence Welk) for a cosmopolitan cocktail of West Coast Cool Jazz, bachelor-pad lounge and transistor-radio soul. And who better to bridge that sprawling generation gap and both sides of the Atlantic than the youthful, dashing, insanely talented composer-performer Burt Bacharach?
More than 50 years since he and lyricist Hal David kicked off an incredible run of Top 40 tunes — and the composer became a popular recording and touring artist in his own right — the 86-year-old Bacharach is still going strong, working in recent years with Adele, Dr. Dre, Elvis Costello and more. When he returns to the Count Basie Theatre on Friday, March 6, the Oscar and Grammy winner will be accompanied by a full complement of musicians and vocalists — and fortified by an awesome catalog of signature hits from Dionne Warwick, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, B.J. Thomas, Cher, Herb Alpert, The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Roberta Flack, Christopher Cross and many others. Take it here for tickets ($49 – $89).
Before all that, the Basie gives us a voyeuristic Look at Love on our somewhat more claustrophobic and decidedly less glamorous 21st century globe: the touring stage comedy known as SPANK! The Fifty Shades Parody. With the fan-fiction-spawned phenom that is the Fifty Shades franchise having scored its own sizable culture-war victories — and with the screen success of Fifty Shades of Grey all but ensuring a Harry Potter-esque run of sequels — the time seems ripe for an encore Red Bank appearance by the musical mockery (written by a committee that includes original director Jim Millan), in which author “E.B. Janet” composes a naughty fantasy centered around an idealized version of herself, and a billionaire with a thing for erotic spanking. Tickets ($25 – $45) for the 8 pm performance on Wednesday, March 4 can be reserved right here.
