In the fall of 1990, the Lon Bronson All-Star Band christened Le Bistro Theatre at Riviera. In the face of predictions from Vegas entertainers and critics that the band would face immediate demise, the powerhouse ensemble instead proved one of the hippest bands in the city.
Bronson’s orchestra was so popular so rapidly that, within a year, it seemed every professional singer and even karaoke hobbyist wanted to clamber onstage to join the Riv’s brassy funhouse.
“I finally had to set a couple of rules,” says Bronson, the great trumpeter whose band celebrates its 20th anniversary Thursday at Ovation at Green Valley Ranch (the band takes the stage around 10 p.m. for an open-ended jam session). “To sing with us, you have to have sung for someone I’ve heard of. And, I have to have a cassette of you singing. This was so long ago that people didn’t even burn their own CDs.”
Failing to meet that criteria meant you would not sing with Bronson. In some instances, or at least in one instance, Bronson turned back a budding star.
“We had this guy come to us who wanted to sing -- you’ll probably guess who it is -- who told us he was working at the MGM Grand Theme Park,” Bronson recalls. “I said, ‘No, we’re getting hundreds of karaoke junkies who want to sing with us. I gotta say no.’ He told me about all these impressions he’d been doing at the MGM Theme park, Elvis and James Brown …”
Ah. Wayne Brady.
“It was Wayne Brady, yep,” Bronson says, laughing. “I don’t recall him getting super-huffy about it, but fast forward seven years, and he’s in town with Drew Carey’s improv all-stars, and he tells me this story.”
Brady wound up taking the stage with Bronson’s orchestra and tearing up the 200-seat Le Bistro Theatre with a couple of Brown songs.
“It was a great show, great,” says Bronson, who is featured at Ovation every other Thursday (the second and fourth Thursday of each month, specifically). “I’ve got this list of about 100 people who have performed with us, and every time I add a name, I think of someone new.”
A sampling, dating to the days at the Riv and including a stint at Golden Nugget, of those who have either attended Bronson's shows or taken the stage: Fee Waybill of The Tubes, Joe Walsh, Bill Medley, Sheena Easton, Weird Al Yankovic, Huey Lewis, David Cassidy, Joe Pesci, Dave Attell, David Lee Roth, Jeremy Piven, Terry Gilliam (during the filming of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”) and Martin Scorsese (during the filming of “Casino”).
“Some are not musicians,” Bronson notes, needlessly, “and a lot of them have been friends of Drew’s. He’s a big fan. He brought Joe Walsh in, who did ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ and jammed on some other songs. That was back in the late ’90s.”
Bronson had no standing gig as a musician when he persuaded then-Riv entertainment director Sam Distephano to set aside time for a weekly jam starring some of the city’s best players. Bronson had an “in” at the Riv because he was the production manager for “Crazy Girls” and “Evening at La Cage” at the hotel, but had no reputation -- good, bad or otherwise -- as a live performer.
“I finally told Sam, ‘We can do this once, because we have more great musicians per capita in Las Vegas than any city in the country,’ ” Bronson says, “And, I told him we’d do it once, for free, and he said, ‘Oh! Free? Let’s do it!’ ”
Soon, you could not find a seat at Le Bistro for those late-night Monday shows, and the momentum has continued at Ovation.
“We’ve invited everyone who has played with us to join us at Ovation,” Bronson says. “By the end, it’ll look like the USC marching band. … It’s supposed to be about a 1-hour, 15-minute show, but this one could go a lot longer.”
Maybe another 20 years, even.
Louie Vito, Donny Osmond, Ashley Hamilton and Michael Irvin on Dancing With the Stars on Nov. 1, 2010.
Osmonds II Men
How can we discernibly link Donny & Marie Osmond to Boys II Men? This way: Boys II Men is all but signed to fill in the dates left vacant by Donny & Marie when the Osmond siblings leave Las Vegas for a couple of weeks to perform a set of holiday shows on Broadway.
The dates the Osmonds will be at Marquis Theatre are Dec. 9-19. Still waiting an announcement on this, but all signs are that Boys II Men will fill those slots. For the uninitiated, or for the temporarily young, Boys II Men is the a cappella group that made “End of the Road” a long-running hit -- there seemed no end of the road for that song, actually -- back in 1992.
Dirk Arthur holds Jan, a 10-week-old leopard to be added to his magic show.
Arthur’s court
Illusionist Dirk Arthur, one of the last remaining performers in Las Vegas to use white tigers in his act, has been at the little 200-seat theater at O’Sheas for about five weeks. If there is a way to make these big cats even more impressive than they already are, it’s to walk them across a stage no more than about 50 feet from any seat in the theater.
I’d not seen Arthur’s act before Tuesday night, and it’s impressive even without the cats. He performs the tear-apart, reconstruct newspaper flawlessly and is an ace (he says in good pun) with playing cards. If you like precisely executed, sleight-of-hand artistry performed by a likable entertainer, Arthur’s is a show to see. If not, just checking out the casino floor at O’Sheas is pretty danged entertaining.
Recycled Percussion's VIP Night at Studio 54 at MGM Grand on Sept. 7, 2010.
Tiffany snares RP
The new lineup of productions at Tiffany Theatre has been released, and the biggest news on this list is Recycled Percussion setting up in the old theater beginning Monday.
The thunderous percussionists who became a nationally recognized act after appearing on “America’s Got Talent” have been slamming the tin at Studio 54 since September. The problem with that venue is it’s restricted to adults. At Tiffany, kids ages 5 and up can rejoice in the interactive beat-fest, set for 7 p.m. Thursdays through Tuesdays (dark Wednesdays, in other words). Tickets to RP are $50, $55 and $60 and include one drink.
Also moving into the Tiff is “Sideswipe,” which at first blush seems the title of my driving record as a teenager (ba-dum-bum!). Actually, the daily show features the martial-arts crew that also was seen on “America’s Got Talent.” It’s nonstop, perpetual-motion acrobatics, running from 2 to 4 p.m. Tickets to “Sideswipe,” and the already announced Beatles tribute “Yesterday,” (5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays) are $29, $39 and $40.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats.
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