LTV Studios will be alive with the sound of music during the coming week, starting Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with the launch of this year’s Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea, a series devoted to acclaimed cabaret and Broadway artists.
“Meet Marvelous Marilyn Maye” will bring to the Wainscott venue’s newly renovated performance space a performer who, at 97, can truly lay claim to the word “legendary.” Together with Tedd Firth on piano, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Bryan Carter on drums, Ms. Maye will perform “A 100th Birthday Tribute to Johnny Carson.”
In 1966, Carson’s sidekick, Ed McMahon, saw Ms. Maye perform at a nightclub and introduced her to Carson. It was love at first song. Carson subsequently booked her on “The Tonight Show” 76 times.
“Johnny loved music,” Ms. Maye has said. “He played guitar and kept a drum set in the closet.” While she can’t be counted on to pack 76 songs into her show at LTV, it’s a safe bet that she’ll perform Carson’s favorite, “Here’s That Rainy Day,” and tell some interesting Carson stories.
During the 1950s, Ms. Maye had a regular gig at the Colony Steak House in Kansas City, Mo. One night while performing she was discovered by Steve Allen, the host — from 1954 to 1957 — of the first installment of “The Tonight Show.” Mr. Allen booked her repeatedly, which led to a recording contract with RCA Victor.
Once on the A-list on the supper club circuit, Ms. Maye and her friend Ella Fitzgerald would meet up when they were in the same city. Fitzgerald told the press that Ms. Maye was one of the three best jazz singers in America, along with Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan.
The arrival of the Beatles made it more difficult for pop singers to get gigs, so Ms. Maye focused on playing roles in regional productions of musicals, taking the lead in Midwestern productions of “Can-Can,” “Mame,” and “Hello, Dolly,” experiences that strengthened her range as a performer.
The pendulum swung again in the 1990s, when younger generations discovered songs that were dear to Ms. Maye, those in what came to be called “the Great American Songbook.”
For the last 12 years, she has worked 10-day engagements every spring and fall to full houses at 54 Below in Manhattan, and her annual engagements include Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the 92nd Street Y. Her 2023 concert at Carnegie Hall with an 83-piece New York Pops Orchestra drew a sold-out crowd of over 2,800. She performed her most recent birthday bash at 54 Below in April, accompanied by Marilyn Maye’s Marvelous Birthday Prix Fixe.
Tickets to Saturday’s show are $100, $150 for a cafe table with a drink ticket.
Piano Jazz, Roots Guitar
The McIver Jazz Piano Series, a new initiative from LTV and Hamptons JazzFest, will kick off on Monday at 6 p.m. with a solo performance by Roberta Piket.
Ms. Piket, whom The New Yorker magazine has called “an exceptional modern-jazz pianist,” is also an organist, composer, and band leader. The daughter of Frederick Piket, a Viennese composer, she moves seamlessly between straight-ahead jazz, post-bop, and avant-garde styles.
Her recordings include “One for Marian,” a tribute to Marian McPartland, her mentor. She has performed with Rufus Reid, Billy Mintz, and Lionel Hampton, and in 2018 she was named a rising star by DownBeat magazine.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door, $10 for students, and $35 for cafe table seating, which includes a drink ticket.
LTV’s East End Underground Live Concert Series will feature Little Toby Walker, a roots music fingerstyle guitar virtuoso, in a performance in Wainscott next Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
Blending the blues, ragtime, country, bluegrass, old-time jazz, and rock, Mr. Walker won first place in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, and has been inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame.
During the early 1990s, he traveled to the Deep South, where he tracked down and studied with traditional blues and folk musicians such as Eugene Powell, James (Son) Thomas, and Etta Baker.
According to John Platt of WFUV, Fordham University’s radio station, “If he doesn’t get them with his phenomenal guitar playing or catchy songs, he gets them with his wonderful stories. True entertainers have an engaging spirit that puts a smile on your face. Arlo Guthrie has it. David Bromberg has it. And so does Toby.”
Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door, and $40 for cafe table seating with a drink ticket.
