E-Mail This Article to a Friend Once you Pops, you can't stop The Boston Pops take a page from the Fox Network, plus a jazz critic's notes and more

"POPSearch 2004"

Cheryl Kain was on the road by 3:15 a.m. last Thursday. When she got to Symphony Hall from her Cape Cod home, she and friends Brian Billiter and Chris Morris parked themselves behind a few dozen other people already lined up outside. The 43-year-old Kain, who makes her living as an office manager, is a singer who has performed in nightclubs and with various choirs, but never for an audience of thousands, let alone a half-million. That opportunity was the prize that she and hundreds of amateurs hoped to claim in "POPSearch 2004," a talent contest to find a soloist to sing whatever song he or she chooses with the Boston Pops at this year’s Fourth of July extravaganza.

The open call was a lifelong dream for some and an impulsive adventure for others. Traveling from as far as Virginia, competitors arrived with beach chairs, umbrellas, coolers stocked with water, fruit and sandwiches, sheet music, and headshots. They came with musical accompanists and with moral support — parents, husbands, infants. They came decked in evening gowns and in jeans and T-shirts. They lined up in spiked heels, ratty Chuck Taylors, and flip-flops. Experience among the pilgrims ranged from a role in a college play to a lifetime in community theater, and from weekend gigs with wedding bands to regular appearances at suburban nightclubs and tenure in church choirs. But all shared the belief that they had a shot at performing for an audience the size of a voting district.

In a move that was surely inspired by the American Idol craze, the Boston Pops held its first open auditions last Thursday and Friday, attracting 360 hopeful amateurs the first day alone. Those contenders were to be winnowed down to 20 who would compete in the next round, June 9 outdoors at Copley Square. Then nine semi-finalists will perform over the course of three separate Pops concerts at Symphony Hall. The winner will score a July 4th that could mark the end of his or her community-theater involvement.

The auditions began at 10 a.m. last Thursday, but by 8:15 there were more than 150 people (singers and their companions) sipping water, practicing scales, and clutching their registration forms and $10 fee while trying to shelter themselves from the rain. "We’re looking for undiscovered talent," said Pops conductor Keith Lockhart before the auditions. "There are quite a few people who can be talented performers and never be heard. For some lucky person, this will provide an opportunity to have their visibility radically increased. And it’s an opportunity for America to have a connection with America’s orchestra. . . . So many people say it’s a dream of theirs to someday perform with the Pops. People feel an ownership in it. We’re the only orchestra that could do something like this. We have links to country, R&B, jazz, opera. We cover a wider palette."

That breadth was represented throughout the day. The seven audition rooms — each of which was presided over by two judges, professionals from the BSO and its artistic collaborators from the New England Conservatory and other local musical organizations — resounded with liturgical songs, tunes made famous by pop stars, and musical-theater anthems by anyone from Gershwin (at least five people on line planned to sing "Summertime") to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

At 9:40, the line leaders broke into "This Little Light of Mine" hootenanny-style in the vestibule as the registration tables got ready to open. Commanding the sing-along was 46-year-old Shirley McAfee, a former nurse from Oakham who was the first to arrive at 4:30 that morning. "This is phenomenal, the thrill of a lifetime for me."

By 11 a.m., the line still stretched down Huntington Avenue, past the Starbucks, where manager Kendra Fitzgerald was struck not by the surge in morning business but by how tough a time she’d had trying to dole out samples of the typically popular Frappuccino. "People don’t want anything to do with dairy. They all say it coats your throat."

Kain and company were engaged in back massage round-robins with new line buddies. A few frazzled latecomers arrived and were stunned by the masses. But Kelly Fergerson, a Brockton 20-year-old with Chinese letters tattoo’d on her arm, was neither chagrined or nervous. "All the cool people are in the back of the line!" For Fergerson, the wait was a leisurely way to pass the now sunny morning compared with her three-day ordeal last August in the Jacob Javitz Convention Center parking lot awaiting American Idol tryouts. A seasoned fame hunter, she ranked among the top 25 performers in the Fox 25 Morning Idol contest and competed for Cardi’s Furniture Southern New England Idol. "I’ll go back [to American Idol] next year if this doesn’t pan out to something special. It’s just a way to get my face out there."

As for the trio from the Cape, after their audition, they could be found looking as if they’d been awake since 3 a.m. Kain sat outside with strained composure. She had sung "Someone To Watch over Me" and saw it as a good sign that the judges didn’t cut her off before the end. "Nine hours for four minutes? You can’t pick yourself apart."

— Liza Weisstuch

Editor’s note: Cheryl Kain, Shirley McAfee, and Kelly Fergerson were, alas, not among the "POPSearch 2004" first-round winners.

More idolatry

If you didn’t make it on "POPSearch," don’t give up yet: the FleetBoston Celebrity Series has announced that it will be helping the Democratic National Committee select student performers ages five to 18 from around Massachusetts to perform at the Democratic National Convention, July 26 to 29. The Celebrity Series will be looking for Massachusetts "student music, dance, and theater groups"; application forms are available as downloads from www.celebrityseries.org/dnc.htm. Applicants are asked to mail the form with a three-to-four-minute video or audio tape (which cannot be returned); the submission deadline is June 17.

A jazz critic’s notes

The John Scofield Trio’s final set June 15 at the Regattabar in the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square will mark the end of an era — the last show presented at the club by Fenton Hollander and his Water Music production company, which has managed bookings there since January 1985. After the Scofield show, it’s been reported, Blue Note International, which owns the club of the same name in New York (but is not affiliated with the jazz label) and books clubs internationally, will take over.

Last month, Alex Attia, general manager of the Charles, was reported to be looking for other promoters to "change the routine and update" the bookings at the club. Over the years, Hollander has booked a mix of R&B artists like Ruth Brown and Irma Thomas, cabaret acts like Annie Royer, a contingent of local Latin and South American artists like Olga Roman, Edu Tancredi, Claudio Ragazzi, and Sergio Brandão — and top-tier jazz artists like Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Dave Douglas, and on and on.

If nothing else, the change at the Regattabar points out how fragile the local jazz ecosystem is. The city’s jazz scene is small but vibrant. The presence of the two hotel clubs — the Regattabar and Scullers in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel in Boston — has meant that over the past decade and a half, jazz fans have had a choice of major jazz talent at least five nights a week. But a shift at either venue could change the picture entirely. Both Hollander and Fred Taylor at Scullers have worked one-year contracts at their clubs, reporting to a constantly shifting cast of management characters for large hotel chains, and they’ve shown that jazz can work in a big-hotel setting on a regular schedule. It’s routine for them to have to educate a new manager about the live-music business in general and live jazz in particular. A hotel can, on a given night, make more money booking a private function than an expensive artist who may or may not draw a crowd and whose audience may or may not buy liquor. Hollander and Taylor have fought an uphill battle to convince their bosses that a world-class jazz room is good for the profile of the hotel (personally, I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve typed the words "at the Regattabar in the Charles Hotel" or "at Scullers in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel" in these pages).

The irony is that after fighting that battle for 20 years, Hollander seems to have made his point. Blue Note specializes in jazz, so we’ll probably see Scofield at the Regattabar again (his latest Verve album was recorded at New York’s Blue Note). It remains to be seen whether the local musicians that Hollander has worked into his schedule with greater frequency over the years — like the Either/Orchestra, Mili Bermejo, Natraj, Dead Cat Bounce — will continue to find a home there.

— Jon Garelick