Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. I didn’t really pay much attention to the band at the time. People were dancing (I don’t dance) and seemed to be having a good time and the band seemed to me to be doing a more than adequate job. It wasn’t until I ‘looked them up’ while preparing this post that I realized that they are actually quite well known

Vince Giordano’s website provides the following information:

Grammy-winner, New York native and multi-instrumentalist Vince Giordano has played in New York nightclubs, appeared in films such as The Cotton Club, The Aviator, Finding Forrester, Revolutionary Road, HBOs Boardwalk Empire and for concerts at the Town Hall, Jazz At Lincoln Center, the Newport Jazz Festival and the 92nd St Y for the past four decades. Recording projects include soundtracks for the award-winning Boardwalk Empire with vocalist like Elvis Costello, Patti Smith, St. Vincent, Regina Spektor, Neko Case, Leon Redbone, Liza Minnelli, Catherine Russell, Rufus Wainwright and David Johansen. Vince and his band have also recorded for Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World, Tamara Jenkins’ The Savages, Robert DeNiro’s The Good Shepherd, Sam Mendes’ Away We Go, Michael Mann’s film Public Enemies, and John Krokidas’ debut feature, Kill Your Darlings, along with HBO’s Grey Gardens and the miniseries Mildred Pierce. The Nighthawks are also seen and heard in the USA Network series Royal Pains and in the PBS series Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook. The band’s recent projects are Todd Haynes’ Academy Award nominated film Carol; and last year’s Emmy-winning Bessie bio-pic on HBO, and Cinemax’s The Knick starring Clive Owen; a Maggie Greenwald film called Sophie and the Rising Sun that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

Current projects include Woody Allen’s Café Society (2016) starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart that opened nation-wide on July 15th. Upcoming projects include a Barry Levinson film for HBO called Wizard of Lies, starring Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer; and an upcoming historical drama called The Promise, directed by Terry George, starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac and the first season of a new Amazon series tentatively called, Z: The Beginning of Everything about Zelda Fitzgerald – that will air in February of 2017.

Cornet Player. This has particular resonance for me as, in my youth, I was for a while a semi- professional (defined by me as getting paid to play, but not very much) cornet player. When I talk to people about this I usually refer to myself as a ‘trumpet’ player rather than a ‘cornet’ player, largely because most people don’t know what a cornet is and it’s too much trouble to explain. Of course I can play a trumpet (or could at that time), and indeed owned one in addition to the cornet, but I preferred the cornet because of the more mellow tone that results from its conical bore rather than more abrasive sound resulting from the trumpet’s cylindrical bore.

You come across trumpets much more often than cornets so it was a nice surprise to see this guy playing one.

Saxophone player.

Singer. I loved her expression and the way the light fell across her eyes. It didn’t hurt that she was a terrific singer.

A documentary entitled Vince Giordano – There’s a Future in the Past is also available.

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