Diary 6|25|2014: The Roosevelt Is 120.

[title type="h5"]Wednesday, June 25, 2014. 120 Years Of The Roosevelt. Jimmy Maxwell's Temp Singer.[/title] The monsoon season continues on and off around New Orleans, sending several waves of torrential showers over most of the city. But there is a break around six, and I walk (folded umbrella in hand, and at a brisk pace) the eight blocks from the radio studio to the Roosevelt Hotel. The hotel is throwing a party for itself on this, its 120th anniversary in--where else?--the Blue Room. One couldn't write a comprehensive history of New Orleans without many references to the Roosevelt. It opened in 1883 as the Grunwald, changed its name when the time came to memorialize Teddy Roosevelt, changed it again when the Fairmont chain took over in the 1960s, and back to The Roosevelt after the hotel--badly damaged by the Katrina flood--reopened as a Waldorf-Astoria a few years ago. [caption id="attachment_42869" align="alignright" width="360"] The Roosevelt's 120th birthday cake. This is a photograph, not a drawing![/caption]I could write at length of how the Roosevelt touches on my two lookouts: radio and food. For decades, the Roosevelt was the home of WWL Radio, from whose studios emanated not only the vaudeville-inflected Dawnbusters Show from the 1930s to the 1950s, but the nationwide, live ballroom music broadcasts from the Roosevelt's famous Blue Room. (Ending with an announcer of my school of microphone work saying "This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.") No local restaurant ever came close to duplicating what the Sazerac put forth in the way of grandiose food and service. The Roosevelt's flagship restaurant blew us away from the mid 1960s (when Chef Gunter Preuss created the Sazerac's distinctive Continental menu) to the late 1980s. Through most of that era, the matchless service standards of Tommy Andrade (the owner of Tommy's now) ruled a restaurant heaven. And then there was the Blue Room. During my years at the Figaro newspaper, I was the only writer interested in the big-band-and-standards music in that grand nightclub, and for years I went to most openings. Ella Fitzgerald, Carol Channing, Mel Torme, Stephane Grappelli, Louis Prima, Lou Rawls, Jack Jones, the Sandpipers, Pearl Bailey. . .those are the stars I remember, and there are more. The Blue Room fed us well, too. It was all a last gasp of an American musical era that had somehow survived intact--big band on stage and all--since the 1930s. I beat Mary Ann to the venue, and walk around to find people I know. And a drink, of course. The bartender says he can't make a Ramos gin fizz (no egg whites handy), so I get the Roosevelt's other famous tipple, a Sazerac. How many establishments have two signature cocktails served by everybody else? While I was waiting for the drink, bandleader Jimmy Maxwell caught my eye. He is there with an octet that fit perfectly onto the Blue Room's famous stage, where all those stars and bandleaders Leon Kelner and Dick Stabile once ruled. "Hey, Tom!" Jimmy said. "How would you like to sing 'If I Had You?'" What? He's asking me? And why that song? I know the melody, but I'm unsure of the lyrics. I think about it while the party rolls. Angela Hill narrates a short history of the Roosevelt, and Jimmy Maxwell plays the music of every period involved--pre-jazz to pop. The Victory Belles--a trio of close-harmony girl singers, as easy to look at as to listen to--bring the music of the 1940s back to life (as if they ever died). The passed-around appetizers are exceptionally toothsome. Oysters, lamb chops, meat pies. . . and a shrimp bisque so good that Mary Ann downs two demitasses and I three. Margarita Bergen appears, so now it's officially a party. And there is Eddie Boettner, who I haven't seen for a long time. Where are Errol and Peggy Laborde? This seems like their kind of gig. Jimmy Maxwell once again asks for a song, in case I didn't take him seriously the first time. Can I have "Where Or When" instead? It seems perfect for the occasion, and I know it every which way. Jimmy runs it flawlessly, but he insists on "If I Had You" too. He hands me an iPad with the sheet music. I get through the song, stumbling as I feel my moment in the spotlight fading. But no. Jimmy sends his girl singer to join me in a duet on "Sentimental Journey." I'll bet Les Brown and his girl singer Doris Day played that here back when. Jimmy Maxwell's orchestra is fabulous. Angela Hill declares herself president of my groupies. Mary Ann says she's welcome to the position. Not one person says, "Keep your day job!" I live for moments like this.