Sunday Times 2
Yolande Bavan plays narrator at Lincoln Centre
View(s):NEW YORK – Yolande Bavan, one of the best known jazz vocalists of her generation and a pioneering Sri Lankan actress on Broadway, will be the narrator at a jazz opera in New York’s prestigious Lincoln Centre next week. Titled ‘The Real Ambassadors’, the show is billed as one of the most ambitious joint projects envisaged by the legendary jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck who died last year, and his wife Lola, who passed away last month.
Described as a musical commentary and a satire on race relations, it was written expressly for the African-American trumpeter-singer Louis “Satchmo” Amstrong, and will premiere on April 11. When the show initially took place live at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962, Bavan was part of the internationally-renowned jazz trio – Lambert, Hendricks and Bavan. At that time, Lola Brubeck was the narrator.
Fifty two years later, Bavan will take the role of the narrator. In Monterey, Bavan said she was in the illustrious company of Louis Armstrong, Carmen Mc Rae, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, John Hendricks and Dave Lambert – all “A” list performers in the world of jazz at that time.
According to the New York Times, “The Real Ambassadors”, as originally conceived, was the fictional story of an American jazz musician who visits Africa on a State Department-sponsored goodwill tour to spread American culture (which, incidentally, also brought Dave Brubeck, Jack Teagarden and Marian Anderson to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in the 1950s). In 1960, the Brubecks wrote the social commentary hoping it would change the world. “They were far ahead of their time. The world wasn’t ready,” says a blurb for the jazz opera. But hopefully, it will be now.