A White House dance

The Best of the Song Books; Ella Fitzgerald

A funny story: On July 7, 1976, the White House held a State Dinner for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness Prince Philip as part of the bicentennial celebration of the American Revolution. As always, “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band assumed their place to provide musical support for the very elgant affair.

In all of the shuffle, the White House powers what be didn’t make arrangements for any special song, or even any special time, for the special dance of the President and Queen Elizabeth. More than likely, the conductor of the Marine dance orchestra assumed that he would receive a heads up when the President prepared to dance with Her Majesty. Nope. No heads up.

Right in the middle of a tune, with no warning, the President led Queen Elizabeth out onto the dance floor and proceeded to dance. And to the conductor’s, and everyone else’s, horror, he realized the predicament that he and his fellow Marines were in: They were playing Cole Porter’s “The Lady Is A Tramp”.

It might have been that nobody even noticed the faux pas, except that one of the newspapers included it in their headlines the next morning. The director of the Marine Band received a stern phone call from the White House that day: The song “The Lady Is A Tramp” is hereby banned from performance at the White House. Period. Amen. As you were.

In December of 1990, at my first audition with “The President’s Own”, they handed me a list of songs. “Pick a song from the list and play it in a cocktail piano style.” I looked at the list, saw “The Lady Is A Tramp” as a choice and started playing it. One of the Marines on the audition committee walked out from behind the screen, approached the piano, stopped me and said, “Let me see that list.” After a quick perusal, he called out, “Yeah, it’s on here”. I’m sorry, did I do something wrong? “Not here, but if you would have been at the White House, they would have sent you home.”

Nobody … I say, nobody … sends home Miss Fitzgerald when she sings “The Lady Is A Tramp”.

Credits: To Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II, for nearly sixty years as the British Monarch. Your majesty, you exude class and reign with sophistication and grace. God Save The Queen.

I am three-quarters of the way through!