Surprise Guests at NJW Student Benefit

Wednesday, September 14 was the date of a benefit performance by a group of Nashville Jazz Workshop students featuring the music of Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The students, Dorian Woodruff, Seay Delgado, Lynn Lewis, Lisa Taylor, and Margaret Smith, with special guests Sandra Dudley & the Lori Mechem Quartet, had been planning this event for some time. Imagine the students' surprise when they learned just a few days before that the Bergmans themselves might be attending the performance!

NJW Director Lori Mechem had met and struck up a friendship with the Bergmans during a visit to the West Coast last year. When she wrote to them to tell them of the upcoming concert, Marilyn wrote back that she would be in Nashville attending an ASCAP Board meeting and that she and Alan would love to attend!

What transpired was magical. The Bergmans are among the nation's greatest composers and lyricists. Their songs ("What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life," "You Must Believe in Spring," "That Face," "How Do You Keep the Music Playing") are some of the most poignant and personal in the jazz and popular idiom. The class dealing with their songs had been one of NJW's most advanced and ambitious vocal classes. It was also an intense and moving experience for the students, who decided to reprise the music to help kick off fundraising for NJW's fall event, Jazzmania 2011.

Each of the performers sung two Bergman songs, backed by Lori Mechem, Roger Spencer, Marcus Finnie, and Denis Solee. They were joined by vocalist Sandra Dudley, who also performed two selections and told the audience about the special guests who were in the house! The vocalists all gave stunning performances, bringing the Bergmans' music to life with all its richness and emotional content. The Bergmans sat in the audience transfixed by the beauty of the performances and moved by the tribute. There was not a dry eye in the place!

At the end of the evening the Bergmans took the stage to thank the performers and the Jazz Workshop. Alan asked to sing a song, and performed the Bergman/Marvin Hamlisch composition, "The Way We Were." It was a fitting end to a storybook evening.

Photo credit: Bo May