Tonight we are playing a concert with Kenny G. I don't know whether or not you'd call "G" his stage name, or just an abbreviation. Yesterday while rehearsing our Classical weekend concert with Emanuel Ax, we were informed that "Mr. G's" plane would be late, so rehearsal today would start late as well. "Mr. G?" Is that like "Mr. T?" As in "I pity the fool that don't think I am the best damn smooth jazz golfer in the WORLD!"
Let's be honest here, people. Stage names USUALLY, though not always, substitute for a very unfortunate real name. As in G for "Gorelick." Yikes. Last summer we played with Clayton Holmes Grissom (Clay Aiken). Actually, the Houston Symphony's Who's Who of unmanageable last names is quite the tongue twister: Anthony Dominick Benedetto (Tony Bennett), Florencia Bisenta de Casillas Martinez Cardona (Vicki Carr). Declan Patrick McManus (Elvis Costello), Vito Farinola (Vic Damone), Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. (John Denver), Christina Claire Ciminella (Wynonna Judd), Sidney Leibowitz (Steve Lawrence), Rosita Dolores Alverio (Rita Moreno), and Louis Weertz (Roger Williams)...to name a few of the ones that will 'fess up.
Then there are musicians that probably SHOULD take stage names. Check out this link to an album cover from a fairly famous jazz pianist/organist, (stop snickering, are we in Kindergarten?) Dick Hyman.
Reinhold Jockisch was a famous musician from the mid 19th century whose edited string parts are widely used today. On the other side of the coin, we have Arnold George Dorsey, who took a perfectly fine name and decided to mess up data entry workers everywhere by seeking fame as Englebert Humperdinck. Not to be confused with the COMPOSER Englebert Humperdinck, of "Hansel and Gretel" fame, who didn't change his name to Arnold Dorsey, or anything else.
Of course, this blog's descent into the banal would not be complete without the story of colleagues in university music departments that sign up fake students (in honor of one of the oldest running Simpsons gags) to take their yearly final jury exams--just for a little levity when the proctor calls out their names. Ben Dover, Mike Rochitches, and Oliver Klosoff were some of those gems. I'll stop while I'm ahead....or at least only a little behind... and leave you with a few outlets.
I need to get to Macy's anyway- I hear they're having a sale on my favorite bedsheets- from Polo by Ralph Lifchitz (Doesn't exactly conjure up images of genteel English countryside, does it?).
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2 comments:
Interesting to see the names of various artists that have been changed to stage names -- and understandably so. But you are incorrect on one -- Clay Aiken. That IS his real name -- well granted he shortened it for public use to Clay instead of Clayton, but the rest is what it is. Yes, he was born with the name you gave, Clayton Holmes Grissom, but it was legally changed long before he decided to try to become a celebrity and for reasons that had NOTHING to do with being a celebrity. It was for personal/family reasons that he changed it, but again it truly IS his real name, not just something to sound better on stage. He went to school and graduated college under that name as well.
Seymore Butts.
tee hee.
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