It’s a dreary fall afternoon, but Pink Martini founder and band leader Thomas Lauderdale is a blur of motion.
Crawling into the cab of a gigantic rental pickup truck, he’s buzzing around town running errands, chatting rapidly about a range of personal passions: why he’s fighting TriMet’s efforts to close downtown MAX stops; how much he wishes people would put away their cell phones and just talk to each other; why Ethiopian spiced iced tea is the absolute best.
Between drags on a clove cigarette, he pauses to reflect on how far Pink Martini has come since it was founded a quarter-century ago.
“Finally, after 25 years, the band sounds like I want it to sound,” he says. “In year’s past I’ve always been a little frustrated, but in our last tour, night after night, I loved how the band sounded.”
Portland’s “little orchestra” celebrated its silver anniversary in October with a gala performance at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The night featured an array of guest singers, audience dignitaries doing a conga line down the aisles, followed by a balloon drop. Not a bad birthday party.
Now it’s bringing its jubilee tour home with two New Year’s Eve shows at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, featuring the Portland Youth Philharmonic and guest vocals by National Public Radio host Ari Shapiro.
These birthday and New Year’s celebrations are a long way from the humble way Pink Martini began. In 1994, Lauderdale had recently returned to Portland after graduating from Harvard, with an eye on entering local politics, starting with the No on 13 campaign, against a state anti-gay-rights ballot measure.
“I got involved in politics immediately, and I had just seen Pee-wee Herman’s Christmas special, which had everyone in it – Cher, k.d. lang, Grace Jones, Charo, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, and on and on,” Lauderdale says. “And he had the Del Rubio Triplets, these 60-something sisters who lived in a triple-wide mobile home in San Pedro, California, and wore matching miniskirts, they had big hair, and they played guitar and sang covers of songs like ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ and ‘Whip It!’
“I thought it would be brilliant to bring them to Portland for a week for a series of small performances in hospitals, nursing homes and Rotary meetings. They would do their set and then say very sweetly ‘Please vote no on 13.’”
The triplets’ Rose City visit ended with a benefit concert at Cinema 21 in Northwest Portland. Lauderdale had trouble lining up an opening act for the show, so he put his piano skills to work.
“I put on a cocktail dress, and that was the birth of Pink Martini,” he says. “It was basically a big variety show then, and it remains so today.”
A Pink Martini New Year’s Eve Celebration
What: Two shows, featuring the Portland Youth Philharmonic and special guest Ari Shapiro.
When: 7 and 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 31.
Where: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway.
Tickets: $34-$115, Portland'5 Box Office, TicketsWest, or StubHub.
Pink Martini celebrates its 25th anniversary with two special New Year's Eve concerts at Portland's Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.Chris Hornbecker
In the early days, Pink Martini was mostly a local phenomenon. In addition to playing political fundraisers, the band played sets of kitschy covers at venues like long-gone nightclubs La Luna and Berbati’s. Audiences were a cross-section of Portland – young and old, gay and straight, well-to-do and working class.
About a year in, Lauderdale brought in fellow Harvard alum China Forbes as lead singer, cementing what became the Pink Martini sound, a blending of big band, Latin swing and cinematic Hollywood ballads. But the band still performed at local weddings and rooftop parties.
The band’s 1997 debut record, "Sympathique," changed everything. The title track, co-written by Lauderdale and singer China Forbes, was a surprise hit in France, where it became the band’s first single and went on to be nominated for Song of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique Awards, the French equivalent to the Grammys.
“We accidentally wrote a French classic,” he says. “At that point we weren’t even travelling outside the city of Portland. It didn’t occur to us that we would ever go to France. It was such an unruly band, that I never thought we could take the whole thing on the road.”
But the band was booked to play four events at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, which led to decades of international touring, playing storied venues like London’s Royal Albert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Over the years, Pink Martini has performed on every continent except Antarctica.
“There aren’t many people there, unfortunately,” Lauderdale laments.
For a band as large as Pink Martini – there are more than a dozen core members – it’s remarkable how many members have been around for almost the entire run. Lauderdale credits the band’s collaborative nature.
“If you’re a working musician, this is a great job,” Lauderdale says. “Band members are paid better than if they were members of the Oregon Symphony.”
And they get to travel extensively, though Lauderdale admits that the novelty of continent hopping wears off quickly. “But you get applause night after night, and that’s really something,” he says.
Pink Martini’s silver anniversary is also cause for some bittersweet reflection. A number of the group’s guest singers have passed away, including jazz singer Jimmy Scott, Broadway legend Carol Channing, comedienne Phyllis Diller, and Oregon Symphony Pops conductor and clarinetist Norman Leyden.
“I feel that older people are amazing,” he says. “They’ve had these huge careers, and it has been such an honor to work with them, learn from them and make music towards the end of their lives. There was a joke at one point there was a Pink Martini ‘curse,’ which meant that if I called, you’d be dead soon.”
Other losses have hit really close to home: Pink Martini drummer Derek Rieth died in 2014, and earlier this year, the band’s original lead singer, Lyndee Mah, passed away.
Lauderdale says he sometimes feels Rieth’s presence when the band performs: “Recently, he’s been on tour with us in a way. We were at the quietest moment in our set, and this percussion set fell apart. It was clearly Derek. It was pure hijinx. I think that energy is all around us.”
Lauderdale continues to champion various civic causes, but he’s ruled out running for mayor or city commission, which he’s toyed with in the past.
“If I ran for office, I would be taking a pay cut, and then I’d have to face angry constituents every day and work under florescent lighting,” he says.
After nine studio recordings, Lauderdale isn’t sure what’s next for Pink Martini, though they’ll keep making music as long as it remains fun.
“I’ve never really had a plan for the band,” he says. “There’s never been a five-year or a 10-year plan. I just want to keep making music I enjoy and collaborate. There’s a chance to collaborate with everyone in an ideal world.”
What would make him want to call it quits?
“I guess if I didn’t like the people I was traveling with, or I didn’t like what was happening on stage, then I would stop,” he says. “That’s not going to happen, because the mission of the band is really important right now. It gives people a reason to go out. The music is diverse – it’s multicultural and multilingual.
“There’s every reason and motivation to keep on going.”
-- Grant Butler
503-221-8566; @grantbutler
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