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Sunday November 28, 2021
Emerson Avenue Salonlines Proudly Presents
a Live YouTube Broadcast
– A “hybrid” concert –
Doug Bowles, tenor
and
Alex Hassan, piano
“PLENTY TO BE THANKFUL FOR”
Song Hits and Should’ve Been Song Hits,
Between the World Wars All Points Bulletin!
Two For a Song, once known as Doug Bowles and Alex Hassan, are back after an eternal…well…2 month hiatus. Performance withdrawal symptoms are entering the severe stage, so the warbler & pianoodler are planning another rollicking-to-romantic program of songs and pianna solos, Sunday evening, Nov. 28th, at 7:30PM. You’ve all got it memorized by now, right?
Doug’s fab’ vocalizin’ will be devoted to both 20s/30s songstress, Lillian Roth, who could put over a song better than the best (not a typo) of ’em, as well as the record collection of his/Alex’s late, most-lamented friend, Rick Colom. While they’ll be doing their usual musical prospecting, be prepared to hear some familiar melodies as well, done up in nothing less than uncanny period style. Ain’t She Sweet will share billing with Fats Waller’s much-less-known “Strange As It Seems”. Try that!
Alex has 2 piano solo specialties, for which he plans to add a finger or two to each hand, including a “Hassanization” of Kay Swift’s gorgeous “Can This Be Love”, and a medley of an extremely obscure UK radio musical of the mid 30s, Mr. Barley’s Abroad. Yes, RADIO! Alex considers the score nothing less than breathtaking.
So, drop everything Sunday night, and join us for an hour of cheer, beauty, amusement–a tonic for the times.
Biographies
Doug Bowles serves on the musical theatre faculties of Howard University and the Catholic University of America, teaches private voice; music directs many local and regional music theatre productions; accompanies cabaret acts and sings solo and group vocal performances and is active as a performer on stage and at the piano.
As a musical director, Doug has MD’d nearly 200 musical productions. Highlights include: working under the advice and guidance of Mr. Stephen Schwartz for THE STEPHEN SCHWARTZ PROJECT, a review by Michael Bobbitt and John Cornelius; MDing for the New York Musical Theatre Festival (Petite Rouge); touring with Dakota Theatre Co. to North Dakota (Always, Patsy Cline); MDing at the Kennedy Center for its PAGE TO STAGE FESTIVAL (Yellow Rose) and leading the orchestra for a special performance at the Terrace Theatre which featured Linda Eder and John Lithgow; and music directing and adapting THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY for a performance at the Volkov Theatre in Yaroslavl, Russia.
Doug has been a Cast Member in two Helen Hayes Award Winning Productions: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PURLOINED PATIENCE (Durwood Leyley/Hosmer Angel) by Nick Olcott for INTERACT at the FOLGER and ASSASSINS (Ensemble/Husband) Directed by Joe Calarco for SIGNATURE THEATRE.
His ensemble, TWO FOR A SONG with Alex Hassan (piano) has appeared around the country and internationally performing newly discovered songs by the major established 1930s composers from Harold Arlen to Fats Waller to George Gershwin. They have appeared on National Public Radio’s ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and BBC INTERNATIONAL. Doug appears on three CDs: NEW DEAL RHYTHM (with Alex Hassan) for Shellwood Records; THE GREATEST SONGS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD (with Soprano Karin Paludan) for Rivermont Records and most recently on SUBLIMITIES: A CY WALTER TRIBUTE on Harbinger Recorders for the Musical Theatre Project in NY.
Doug also appears on Wax Cylinder, recorded at the Edison National History Site by Peter Dilg. Doug’s work has received enthusiastic reviews from Michael Feinstein, Leonard Maltin, Vince Giordano and Ethan Morrden (noted author and expert on the American Musical Theatre). NEW DEAL RHYTHM has been played on radio stations around the world and was nominated for a Washington Area Music Award (WAMMY). 2013 saw Mr. Bowles appearing at the National Gallery of Art and on a Midwest tour with Grammy Award Winning music, Dennis James.
Doug sang and danced music of the 1920s while Mr. James Accompanied both him and the silent movies behind him. Doug’s entertainment company SingCo Music has produced a number of shows of his own devising: STUDIO ’37; G.I. JIVE: LETTERS FROM THE WAR; SUTDIO’ 37, and WIRELESS MEMORIES. SingCo Music also proudly represents Doug’s hot jazz and swing band Doug Bowles and his SingCo Rhythm Orchestra. This multiple Wammy nominated orchestra has performed for venues as varied as the Glen Echo Spanish Ballroom (with Jean Veloz, 1940s era dance queen) The Voice of America, The National Archives, Channel 4 TV and many others.
Doug has also appeared with noted, Grammy Award winning band leader, Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks (Boardwalk Empire; The Aviator; Prairie Home Companion, Bessie). Mr. Bowles recently traveled to Thames Ditton, UK and Husum, Germany with pianist, Alex Hassan, to present several concerts of music by German and American composers of the 1920s and 30s. Check out Doug’s activities at www.dougbowles.com and on facebook at Doug Bowles: Classic American Entertainment and Three for a Song.
Alex Hassan has been in total immersion 1920s/30s Tin Pan Alley Popular Piano Styles therapy for over 40 years. A pupil of a pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Franz Liszt (well…it SOUNDS impressive?!), he has been a torchbearer for the melodies of between-the-wars Broadway and Hollywood (and European equivalents), devoting himself more specifically to collecting and resurrecting the great “late Romantic with a beat” popular songs that really never had a chance.
His archival collection of [mostly] popular piano solo and vocal sheet music numbers around 45,000 titles, entirely 1920s/30s. It is a tribute to those heady musical times that there is still so much left to find.
Alex has performed internationally at such venues as England’s Aldeburgh Festival, Husum (2007 & 2015–“Piano Rarities Festival”), Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, the Coolidge Auditorium (Library of Congress), various Manhattan/Baltimore/Washington night spots, and national ragtime festivals. He has recorded prolifically for England’s SHELLWOOD PRODUCTIONS, Los Angeleno label OPERETTA ARCHIVES, and Pennsylvania’s STOMP OFF, and has produced/annotated several reissues of the virtuoso popular pianists of the 78RPM period, for both Shellwood and the Pittsburgh company, RIVERMONT (for which he has also recorded, along with two brilliant singing friends).
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