Live from Lincoln Center: "An Evening With Danny Kaye"

On September 23, 1981 Danny conducted the New York Philharmonic to help raise money for the musicians' pension fund.
This concert was broadcast on PBS. Below are articles regarding this event.

“Danny Kaye Set As Conductor”

Waycross Journal-Herald – May 4, 1981

NEW YORK (AP) – Comedian Danny Kaye, who says conducting an orchestra is “the greatest feeling of neurotic power in the world,” will get a chance to display his brand of lunacy with the New York Philharmonic.

Conductor Zubin Mehta will yield his baton to Kaye in a Sept. 23 “Live from Lincoln Center” broadcast on PBS. The concert will benefit the musicians’ pension fund.

“When you think of it as a symphonic concert, it is really not,” Kaye said Wednesday. “A lot of craziness goes on.”

Mehta said orchestra rehearsals by Kaye are professional and serious. “He has got a clearer beat than three-fourths of my colleagues,” the conductor said.

Kaye, who studies by listening to records but can’t read a score, has raised $5.5 million for musicians’ pension funds with his concerts.

“Kaye to conduct Philharmonic”

The Modesto Bee – May 24, 1981

By: Ruth Thompson

When he is on the podium Zubin Mehta, music director of the New York Philharmonic, can look as stern as Zeus. He was recently thrown a party on his birthday and he was smiling all the time. The reason: he had the pleasure of announcing that his long-time friend, Danny Kaye, would co-conduct a gala performance this September under the “Live from Lincoln Center” banner on PBS.

Now it is not news that Danny Kaye, who cannot read music, has guest-conducted around the world for a quarter of a century. What is news is that for the first time, Danny has agreed to have his conducting televised. Danny hopes that his coverage will call further attention to the cause of the event – a benefit for the Musicians’ Pension Fund.

“I’m serious about rehearsals,” says Danny, “but we do have fun, because my guide to them is by changing my facial expressions…not standard hand commands.”

“Danny Kaye will conduct the New York Philharmonic”

The Evening News – Sep. 19, 1981

Danny Kaye, a man of a thousand talents and one of America’s most celebrated entertainers, will conduct a gala Pension Fund Benefit performance of the New York Philharmonic on Wednesday, September 23, to be telecast live on the award-winning series, “Live from Lincoln Center.” The televised concert, originating from the stage of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, will be seen over PBS.

Perhaps the only conductor in the world who cannot read a note of music, Danny Kaye has been conducting orchestra benefits for over 25 years and has helped raise over $5 million for orchestra musicians’ pension funds.

Mr. Kaye began his conducting career in 1954 when, as a joke, he agreed to conduct a Philadelphia Orchestra benefit. The event was an enormous success and invitations soon followed from symphony orchestras around the world.

“It may start out formal,” Mr. Kaye says about his forth-coming concert, “but it won’t stay that way. We play the music straight—no slopping through it—but what comes between the numbers, well, it’s not serious. I love the symphony and have the greatest respect for it, but I think a little clowning removes some of the secrecy and solemnity that has grown up around serious music. I don’t think I have permanently damaged any orchestra.” However, he generally breaks a dozen or more batons per concert.

Zubin Mehta, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, who will introduce Mr. Kaye at the concert and will conduct part of the program, has great respect for Danny Kaye as a conductor. “Danny and I have been friends for many years,” the maestro recently said. “I have great admiration for him, not only as a friend, but as one of the supremely gifted entertainers of our time.”

“Reading Skipped – Danny Kaye Leads Philharmonic”

The Press-Courier – Sep. 24, 1981

NEW YORK (AP) – Danny Kaye, who can’t read music, but who has a keen sense of timing as well as humor, conducted the New York Philharmonic Wednesday night in a gala pension fund benefit.

The Avery Fisher Hall concert was televised on “Live from Lincoln Center” on PBS. Proceeds from the concert and ball which followed totaled $335,000.

Kaye entered with a whole quiver of batons. He occasionally brought in the violins with a leg kick and conducted “Flight of the Bumble Bee” with a flexible red flyswatter.

He conducted “Dance of the Hours” facing the audience, to show what the conductor’s face looks like during a piece. His face was rubber, mouth open wide in pain when the brasses made mistakes, coy with a female cellist. The jokes came thick and fast; so did the accents, from gibberish German to British vagueness to Bostonian when talking about scenic Tanglewood, adding a zinger about biting flies.

Kaye, who said, “I really don’t know when I’ve had a better, more exhilarating, more delightful time in my life. It’s the greatest feeling of neurotic power in the world.”

That was a lead-in to imitating four types of conductors, including “the one who should have retired 100 years ago.” This required the services of concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and principal cellist Lorne Munroe to support his doddering attempt to mount the podium.

Kaye, who was born in Brooklyn in 1913, started conducting in 1954, as a joke, for a Philadelphia Orchestra benefit. He has helped raise more than $5 million for orchestra musicians’ pension funds. He led such concerts for this orchestra in March 1958 and March 1965.

He hadn’t allowed one of his concerts to be televised before, since he uses variations on his clowning around each time he conducts. But he doesn’t need to worry. He’s funny – and remarkably impressive as a conductor – even when one isn’t seeing his baton act for the first time.

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