“It’s almost midnight on Toast of the Nation from NPR Music!
The Mingus Big Band is going to jump into the new year with a Song with Orange arr by the band’s the long time saxophonist and friend, the late John Stubblefield are you about ready for the countdown? 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
Michael was always game to hop on a plane and host a New Year’s Eve broadcast—all night, all live, from coast to coast. In 1991 he went to St. Louis, his hometown, to Just Jazz for the Benny Green Trio and Bobby Watson, Victor Lewis and Horizon. After the countdown and “Auld Lang Syne,” the band played Bobby’s “In Case You Missed It.” The next year Michael flew to a small holiday festival in a hotel in Indian Wells, CA (not yet on the tennis tournament map). Michael and KLON’s Helen Borgers hosted Joey DeFrancesco and the Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham and the Sweet Baby Blues Band, together at midnight. In 1995 Michael popped up in Denver at with KUVO, presenting the Valery Ponamarev Quintet, in from New York, and Dianne Reeves and Her Brazilian Band. Her music levitated Vartan’s club. Denver was Dianne’s hometown, and her family was in the audience, I believe.
On the Y2K Michael and Rhonda Hamilton anchored the whole night from NPR in Washington, from Billy Taylor and Friends at the Kennedy Center, the Mingus Millennium Orchestra at City Hall in Manhattan, and Nicholas Payton and Allen Toussaint back to back from the Storyville District hotel in New Orleans. Then, from Yoshi’s in Oakland, Steve Turre and Sanctified Shells with Jon Faddis, Pharoah Sanders and Giovanni Hidalgo chanted “The Creator Has a Master Plan” over and over at midnight. We had crossed into the new century, coast to coast, and everyone was safely on the other side.
When Michael emceed for Kurt Elling in Chicago, it was bitterly cold and probably windy, impossible to hail a cab so Michael walked between the hotel and club and bragged about it.
For years he kept a list of every New Year’s line-up and his place in it. I wish I had that list today.
Ringing in 2009, the Mingus Big Band packed the Jazz Standard in New York. On the tape I hear Michael slide in over Frank Lacy’s vocal, aiming for midnight on the nose. There’s a little “Auld Lang Syne” and a lot of Mingus’s “Song with Orange” (John Stubblefield arrangement) and it’s a beautiful party. Later, saying good night from the stage, Michael declares this New Year’s Eve the best in 22 years. In 2010 Mingus Big Band Live at Jazz Standard won the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.