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March 28, 2024

Clint Holmes looking to uncork an ace with ‘Between the Lines’

Clint Holmes

Clint Holmes and other notable names join UNLV’s Jazz Ensemble I on Sunday, March 4, 2015, for the Joe Williams Scholarship Fundraising Concert.

‘Georgia on My Mind’ at Venetian

Singers Nnenna Freelon, Clint Holmes and a Take 6 member perform as The Venetian Las Vegas announces the engagement of Launch slideshow »

Clint Holmes at Capitol Records

Clint Holmes and members of the Count Basie Orchestra record an upcoming album in Studio A, aka the “Grammy Studio,” at Capitol Records on Thursday, July 10, 2014, in Los Angeles.
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Clint Holmes ‘To Ella With Love’ at the Hollywood Bowl

Clint Holmes and friends rehearse for “To Ella With Love” at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday, July 9, 2014, in Los Angeles.

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Clint Holmes is a very good tennis player, one reason he is so fit at age 70. Naturally, the way to win at that game is to find the lines and fire shots at those boundaries.

Holmes’ new show hints to that strategy but carries a musical meaning, too: “Clint Holmes: Between the Lines” is the title, indicating Holmes’ penchant for digging for a deeper meaning into every song he performs.

“I wanted people to think of reading between the lines, for showing how lyrics strike me and what they really say,” Holmes said earlier today. “I was looking for a way to express that as we decided on what type of show I was going to do.”

A partnership between Palazzo and Best Agency (chiefly that company’s CEO Ken Henderson), “Between the Lines” opens at Palazzo Theater on July 16 in the 10 p.m. time slot after “Baz: Star Crossed Love” in the same renovated theater. The show is to run Tuesdays through Saturdays; tickets start at $42.65 (with tax and fees included) and are available at any box office at the Venetian or Palazzo, at Palazzo.com and by calling (702) 414-9000 and (866) 641-7469.

The new show is a blend of contemporary classics with Holmes’ own well-placed originals. Envision a medley of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish,” "7 Years" by Lukas Graham, Holmes’ own “Playground in My Mind,” all of which is encompassed in a musical storytelling format that reveals Holmes’ musical underpinnings.

The autobiographical arc is a familiar theme for Holmes, who spent six years at Harrah’s singing and telling his story from 2000-2006 and more recently from March 2012 through this month at Cabaret Jazz. His last scheduled monthly headlining appearance at the “little room” is Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in “Nat Meets Mel,” a tribute to Nat King Cole and Mel Torme with Billy Stritch.

In his shows at Cab Jazz, Holmes has embraced Burt Bacharach and The Beatles, Paul Simon and Cole Porter, Wonder, Ray Charles and Bobby Short among many other stars spanning the generations.

“I have never had just one genre, which in some ways can hurt an artist because you are not that one ‘thing,’ ” Holmes says. “Johnny Mathis has a certain style, and he owns it, but for me, I have learned through the Cabaret Jazz shows that I can continue to grow and express myself in many different styles.”

One of the original titles under consideration for the show was “Inspired,” and that name is not going to waste. It’s the name of Holmes’ upcoming CD, which is now targeted for a fall release.

That release, and Holmes’ run at Cab Jazz, have inspired a creatively inventive period in Holmes’ career. Critical to his approach to the wide-ranging “Between the Lines” stage show was recruiting musicians of vast versatility and experience.

Holmes’ music director is the expert multi-instrumentalist Christian Tamburr, who alternates among piano, vibes, marimba and guitar (he also plays drums if the need arises). The remainder of the lineup in Holmes’ show was a lively topic of discussion in the city’s entertainment scene for several weeks, as Holmes nabbed guitarist John Wedemeyer (currently in The Righteous Brothers band at Harrah’s and a member of Holmes’ band at the Smith Center), sax great Rocco Barbato (Donny & Marie at Flamingo), drummer Jakubu Griffin (late of “Zarkana” at Aria), bassist Dave Ostrem (from the original “Baz” at Light in Mandalay Bay) and keyboardist Jamie Hosmer of Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns.

Hosmer was a member of Holmes’ lineup at Harrah’s when Santa Fe served as the backing band. As Holmes says, “We want people to come in and be as much into the band as they are into what I’m doing. That’s what we were able to achieve when we were at Harrah’s and why we felt finding the right mix of versatile musicians was so important.”

A similarly extensive, and inherently difficult, decision was which singer to select. Again, the city is a veritable treasure trove of great female singers, and Holmes auditioned many of the very best. But he had caught Noybel Gorgoy at Tuscany Suites’ Piazza Lounge a couple of weeks ago as she performed with Kenny Davidsen’s band.

“Wow, who is this?” was Holmes’ startled response to the performance by Gorgoy, who hails from Cuba and is the fiery vocalist for the gypsy jazz band The Hot Club of Las Vegas (most recently that band floored Cab Jazz during the Composers’ Showcase of Las Vegas). Not as well-known as many of the singers who tried out for the role, Gorgoy showed up to audition for Holmes and Henderson and was asked to sing a song in Spanish.

“She turns to Christian at the piano and asks if he knows some title in Spanish that I hadn’t heard of,” Holmes recalled, laughing. “Christian hadn’t heard of it, either, so she says, ‘I’ll do it,’ and moves him off the piano and plays it herself. So, she’s got that capability, too.”

The show is set in the original home of “Jersey Boys,” and most recently Bob Anderson’s’ “Frank: The Man, the Music,” which closed in November. The balcony has been taken out of play and the seating reduced to about 550. A lengthy runway extends from the middle of the stage to the back of the room, and two additional runways extend from stage left and right.

“The theater itself is a star,” Holmes said. “There’s nothing in the city like it.”

Holmes has performed in a pretty special venue over the past four-plus years, a time that has afforded him a chance to gain professional stability and play important road dates at such venues as Cafe Carlyle in New York and a one-off at Hollywood Bowl in 2014.

“I have grown as an artist through this whole process,” Holmes said. “I have been finding ways to reinvent myself month after month, and all of that is because of my time at the Smith Center.”

That evolution has led to “Between the Lines.” What will be the measure of success for this show? Holmes considers the question, then says, “The bottom line is, if the audience finds the show,” Holmes says. “We have to grow our core audience and prove to people that what we’re doing is unique and exciting to come back again.

“It’s a risk, what we’re doing, and I’ve canceled everything I’ve had on my schedule for a year to do it, but, you know, it’s time to go big or go home.” And if you have an ace in that bag, now’s the time to serve it.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow Kats on Instagram at Instagram.com/JohnnyKats1.

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