Last month, Tulsa's Jerome Dabney celebrated 30 years as a cruise-ship performer. And as he's sung for those crowds over the past three decades, the entertainer known in the cruise industry as “Mr. Motown” has made quite a few adjustments to his repertoire. “It's really been one of those evolving situations,” he explains. “When I first started, I was doing a tribute show – not impersonations, but tributes to the music of Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, those artists. And then as the years passed, the audiences changed, and now there are a lot of really big Motown fans out there. I would say that in two years, if you're going to be an entertainer in the cruise industry, it might be your best bet to do a lot of disco-type stuff. The people who have the time and money to cruise are usually older people, so you want to be able to appeal to the majority of your crowd.” ...
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Last month, Tulsa's Jerome Dabney celebrated 30 years as a cruise-ship performer. And as he's sung for those crowds over the past three decades, the entertainer known in the cruise industry as “Mr. Motown” has made quite a few adjustments to his repertoire. “It's really been one of those evolving situations,” he explains. “When I first started, I was doing a tribute show – not impersonations, but tributes to the music of Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, those artists. And then as the years passed, the audiences changed, and now there are a lot of really big Motown fans out there. I would say that in two years, if you're going to be an entertainer in the cruise industry, it might be your best bet to do a lot of disco-type stuff. The people who have the time and money to cruise are usually older people, so you want to be able to appeal to the majority of your crowd.”
For the past decade or so, both on sea and on land, Dabney has done a lot to earn that “Mr. Motown” tag – which, he notes, is “a monicker one of the cruise directors I worked with gave me, and it kind of stuck.” Over the past decade, he's toured internationally with Tribute – A Salute to the Temptations, branching out from Las Vegas to dates in England, Japan, and South America, as well as other spots around the globe. He also does a regular Motown show, a Stevie Wonder show, and, in 2012, toured Asia with the World Famous Platters, playing dates in the Philippine Islands and Singapore and appearing on a cruise ship in Malaysia.
Sunday, however, Mr. Motown becomes Mr. Standards, as Dabney returns to the music he began performing on ships back in the mid-'80s. “What I plan to do on Sunday are the traditional jazz standards,” he says. “I was talking to Dean [DeMerritt] the other day, and I was telling him there are a lot of jazz tunes out there that are quote-unquote `jazzy-jazzy' – like `Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most.' That's a jazzy-jazzy song; your jazz connoisseur is going to know that song, but someone who just enjoys jazz music may not. I don't think a lot of effort is being spent on the basic jazz standard. When's the last time you heard someone singing `Misty'? So I told Dean, `I'm just going to offer up as many classic standards as I possibly can.' Sunday's Dean DeMerritt Jazz Tribe lineup includes Scott McQuade on piano, Wade Robertson on drums and Dean DeMerritt on bass.
To enjoy the jazz, call Bettie Downing at (918) 928-JAZZ (5299) and purchase your tickets. Members and Seniors enjoy discounted ticket prices at $10.00 each. General Admission tickets are only $15.00, or $20.00 for Reserved Table Seating. High school and middle school students admitted for only $5.00.
The event is a part of the Jazz Hall’s 2014 Autumn Concert Series.
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