Comments (0) |

Drummer beats path through Ky.

By Rich Copley rcopley@herald-leader.com

For most musicians, working closely with legends like Liza ­Minnelli or composer/conductor Henry ­Mancini would be résumé-topping credits. Drummer and conductor Michael Berkowitz can claim both, as well as a bunch of other head-turning associations.

He'll bring both of his marquee distinctions to Kentucky during the next month.

Next weekend, the Indianapolis native will be in the Kentucky Horse Park to conduct the annual Picnic With the Pops concert. It will be the first time the event has gone on ­without retiring Lexington ­Philharmonic Orchestra conductor George Zack at the podium.

Berkowitz and a handful of Henry Mancini Orchestra veterans will join the philharmonic for a program ­including Mancini classics like Moon River and the Pink Panther theme.

”It's all the songs you know and love of Henry Mancini and probably a couple that you've not been aware of,“ Berkowitz says. ”This concert is ­basically the concert we used to perform with Henry, when he was alive and kicking. We often say that if he came down and walked into the auditorium, he could pick up the baton and go because it was the same concert he used to do.“

Mancini was the man who persuaded Berkowitz to move to Los Angeles after he finished graduate school at Indiana University in the late 1960s.

Mancini started his career in big bands in the late 1940s but really found his calling when he hooked up with film director Blake Edwards and wrote tunes such as the themes for the TV show ­Peter Gunn, and the Pink Panther ­movies and cartoons; the songs ­Charade, Moon River; and other ­classics.

”He was an amazing man, very ­passionate, very brilliant and very ­funny,“ Berkowitz says, recalling ­Mancini, who died in 1994.

He was also something of a perfectionist, not above stopping a concert if he wasn't getting what he wanted. Berkowitz recalls one concert in which Mancini halted the show several times to tell the bassists, at diminishing levels of politeness, to play louder.

”He told me once that all he cared about was getting his music played right,“ says Berkowitz, who is confident that should not be a problem with the Lexington Philharmonic.

”I was there a few years ago doing a Sinatra program, and it's a fine, fine orchestra,“ Berkowitz says of the Phil. ”Orchestras play this great. Henry designed it to be played and rehearsed quickly by symphony orchestras.“

In Lexington, Berkowitz will mainly conduct, but he will pick up his sticks for one number, Drummer's Delight.

On Sept. 9, when Minnelli comes to the Kentucky Center in Louisville, Berkowitz will be behind the drum kit the whole night.

”With Liza, the drum chair is a very hot seat,“ Berkowitz says. ”She sings to the drums. We're tuned into each other. She swings the band. Where she sings and how she sings brings the whole band along with her.

”It's great. There's nothing else like in it in show business.“

The show, Berkowitz says, includes all of Minnelli's big hits like Cabaret, Maybe This Time and New York, New York, as well as a tribute to her ­godmother Kay Thompson, a swing singer who also wrote the Eloise series of children's books.

Berkowitz says the show Minnelli is performing on the road is being aimed toward a possible Broadway run.

In addition to Minnelli and Mancini shows, Berkowitz tours around the country conducting symphony pops programs and heads some big band ­programs, including a recent Gene Krupa tribute album. Through the years, Berkowitz also has worked with ­Nelson Riddle, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome ­Robbins, Marvin Hamlisch and others.

”It's been luck and a lot of fun,“ Berkowitz says, ”and I feel quite lucky to be doing what I love to do.“