Red Carpet Report: Lainie Kazan at Cabaret Jazz, $450K e-sports tournament, Nevada Day
My longtime friend Lainie Kazan heads to Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts on Friday and Saturday. The jazz singer and actress of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” goes back with me to the earliest days of The Playboy Clubs.
I asked her if she described her style as “jazzical.” “I think jazzical hits the nail on the head,” she told me as she packed for her trip here. “With an emphasis on the dramatic, I try to make my audiences laugh and cry, and I hope that I succeed.
“I don’t just sing songs. I tell stories. The songs I sing were written during a time when lyrics contained so much more meaning and emotion. I feel as though I’m one of the ambassadors for the Great American Songbook.
“In fact, I have the honor of teaching song interpretation as an adjunct professor at UCLA in a class called ‘Acting for the Singer.’ I don’t think jazz has lost its appeal, and it welcomes new or young listeners all the time.
“Every year new artists are born and new fans are made. I’ve really been exploring Latin jazz lately, and I’m very pleased to include that genre in my Smith Center show. In fact, I’ve added a conga player to my band.”
I asked if the success of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” had affected her audiences and shows: “My audiences are more plentiful, but sometimes I don’t think they realize that I sing,” she said.
“The ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ films were all about family and emphasized different generations in a family. Therefore, the audiences for my shows are extremely multi-generational. I’ve been working in Las Vegas since I was a young girl.
“I’ve appeared with so many great artists there and headlined at all the great hotels. I have so many great memories. It’s a joy to be back at The Smith Center working to such fabulous audiences.”
NEVADA DAY WITH LONNIE
It was in October 1864 that Nevada was admitted into the Union, and we celebrate it with a public holiday Friday. It’s the biggest statehood celebration in the country with the Carson Parade in downtown Carson City. Las Vegas and Henderson have events, balloon launches and a carnival.
But nobody celebrates the holiday Nevada Day more than Dr. Lonnie Hammargren, who hosts his 21st annual Nevada Day open house Saturday and Sunday at his home of Nevada history on Ridgecrest Drive. Lonnie served as a flight surgeon flying more than 100 missions behind enemy lines in rescue helicopters during the Vietnam War.
After training in neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic, he moved here in 1971. He was on call for head and spinal trauma injuries for several decades where he got to meet and to know The Marvelous Gladiators — boxers, skydivers, stuntmen and motorcycle daredevils. He always made them an offer that they couldn’t refuse.
You jump. If you get hurt, I’ll fix ya, but I get your busted up uniform, bike and more. His home has them all on wall-to-wall display for visitors this weekend. Dr. Hammargren was the trauma physician at dozens of daredevil jumps for Evil Knievel and now Robbie Knievel. Two months ago, Lonnie flew to Dallas when Robbie flew his motorcycle successfully over 18 Corvettes.
Lonnie helped save the life of Gary Wells who attempted to do what Evil Knievel had failed to pull off: Jumping over the Caesars Palace fountains. The landing failed, and he was propelled 70 mph into a concrete wall. Lonnie gave him an airway that allowed him to breathe and time to get to a hospital. Gary’s motorcycle is at Lonnie’s home with a collection from other Gladiators.
Lonnie is the only neurosurgeon to have operated on five boxers, and there is a boxing exhibit in his home. His new book, “Neurosurgeon for the Gladiators,” will be available at his weekend open house. In addition to all the Gladiators, Lonnie has written about his own life, “a sort of biography,” as he puts it.
The fascinating and fast page-turner reveals that Lonnie was born in a stable behind an inn on Christmas Day at a stagecoach stop halfway between St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota. Lonnie’s father converted the stable into a one-bedroom home where Lonnie was born, and it is still there to this day.
GIANT COMPUTER TOURNAMENT
An e-sports arena event with a $450,000 prize pool is set for MGM Grand Garden Arena in February with the tournament play of the computer game Counter Strike Global Offensive. Its debut tournament in Sweden last year was attended by more than 12,000 fans and had more than 32 million streaming views.
Dream Hack Masters Las Vegas will be the world’s largest digital festival. It took a crew of 809 people to run the Dream Hack winter show last year with 23,425 computer devices linked up in the largest e-sports network ever built using 30,000 amps of power.
