[Dixielandjazz] "Traditional" New Years Eve in NYC

[Steve barbone]

Following is a short NY Times list of EXPENSIVE New Year's Eve celebrations
at American Songbook OKOM venues. NOTE ESPECIALLY the last paragraph.

That's a long way from the $5 admission charges some jazz societies charge
at concerts, in hopes of attracting an audience. :-) VBG

Every OKOM band in the world should be booked for New Years Eve. Yeah, yeah,
I know, people hate this music. . .

Cheers,
Steve 


Elegance for Those Willing to Pay

To enjoy a traditional New Year's Eve in Manhattan, you would have to
time-travel back to the Waldorf-Astoria in the 1950's to sway to Guy
Lombardo and his Royal Canadians playing the Sweetest Music This Side of
Heaven, as his brand of creamed corn was so badly mislabeled. A smooch to
the midnight strains of the orchestra groaning weakly through "Auld Lang
Syne" would complete your nostalgia trip.

Fifty years later, old-time elegance, but of a smarter kind, can still be
enjoyed, but it costs wads of money that might be better spent on exercise
equipment or a gym membership. At the Trianon Room just upstairs from the
Cafe Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel (35 East 76th Street, 212-744-1600),
Elaine Stritch is performing her raucous, sentimental and wonderful show,
"Elaine Stritch at Home at the Carlyle," for 100 guests after a five-course
dinner that includes a free bottle of Champagne; then there's dancing in the
hotel lobby to the Peter Duchin Band. The cost: a modest $500 a person.

Smoother, more purely romantic entertainment is available at Feinstein's at
the Regency (540 Park Avenue, at 61st Street, 212-339-4095): a three-course
dinner, an open bar and a special New Year's Eve show by the crooner Michael
Feinstein, performing with a band led by John Oddo. The cost is $650 a
person. 

At the Algonquin Hotel (59 West 44th Street, 212-419-9331), a gala dinner
and dancing till 2 a.m. to Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, a more
sophisticated and accomplished band than the Royal Canadians ever dreamed of
being, costs $400 a person.