Tony Bennett, Patti Smith, Common and Bernie Sanders Go Live at the Apollo for

[Uncle Joe]

‘Great Night in Harlem’

The Jazz Foundation of America won’t be accused of false advertising, or overpromising and underdelivering, with a hard-to-live-up-to name like “A Great Night in Harlem” — at least not for this 19th annual edition of their benefit at the Apollo Theatre, which had Tony Bennett as a lifetime achievement honoree and performers as wildly disparate and crazily on-form as Bettye LaVette, Patti Smith, Savion Glover, Common and the Count Basie Orchestra.

Not on the bill, but showing up as a surprise guest: Senator Bernie Sanders. “I’ve certainly known of and been a fan of Tony Bennett for many years, but I don’t know him personally,” Sanders told Variety on his way into the Apollo. “But Harry Belafonte I do know personally, and I’ve worked with Harry for a number of years,” he said, referring to the other lifetime honoree, who was being saluted in absentia. “Harry is truly an American hero. Everyone knows him for being the great entertainer he has been, but he has also been in the forefront of the fight for racial justice and economic justice, from waaaay back when, when it wasn’t so easy” for a pop star/actor to moonlight as an activist.

(snip)

Belafonte had been expected to show up for his lifetime achievement award, but Jazz Foundation founder-director Wendy Oxenhorn suggested that she believed he might have been “too proud” to show up in anything other than peak condition. She did film a greeting from the crowd for Belafonte to see, with host Danny Glover leading everyone in a quick round of “Day-oh” from “The Banana Boat Song.”

The mood was more serious as civil rights leader and former ambassador Andrew Young accepted on Belafonte’s behalf, also making note of the MLK assassination anniversary. He said the movement as the world knew it might not even have existed “if it hadn’t been for Harry Belafonte… Harry came here (to New York) and at the Actors’ Studio he got involved with Paul Robeson, but he also got Tony Bennett, Marlon Brando, the whole gang… everybody who was anybody got involved in the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King used to say that you’ve got to be certifiably insane to be doing what we’re doing. So whenever we decided to do something, he said, ‘Wait a minute, before you do that, let me call Harry.’ Because he said ‘Harry will tell you whether this is crazy or not. and Harry will let us know how the rest of the world is looking at us being foolish.’ And we werefools, fools for freedom. And we didn’t mind dying for it… But it was Harry in the New York committee that sort of helped us keep even.” Belafonte, Young added, “is a saint.”


https://variety.com/2019/music/news/tony-bennett-patti-smith-bernie-sanders-apollo-theater-1203182241/

[sfwriter]

1. What a night.

Belefonte is a treasure.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Thanks for the addition sfwriter