Pink Martini - Biography
By J Poet
Thomas M. Lauderdale, a classically trained pianist, founded pink Martini in 1994 to play at political benefits for civil rights, affordable housing, clean water, and public broadcasting organizations. The Portland, Oregon based self-billed “little orchestra” plays classical pop music with international influences that draw on French, Greek, Turkish, Cuban, and Lebanese music as well as other diverse sounds from Asia, Europe, South America and the Arab continuum. The band started with the core of Lauderdale and singer China Forbes.
Lauderdale was born in Indiana, and is Asian, although he never knew his parents. The Lauderdales, a multi-racial family that included Iranian and African-American children, adopted him and the family moved to Portland Oregon. Lauderdale studied classical piano in school, but was always interested in the pop and folk music of other nations. He met Forbes, who is also multi-racial – her mom’s African American and her father’s French Scottish - when they were students at Harvard. They started performing opera with Forbes singing arias and Lauderdale backing her on piano. In 1994, Lauderdale was back in Portland and Forbes was leading a folk rock band in New York City. Lauderdale called and asked Forbes to come to Portland and join Pink Martini.
Pink Martini first performed at a John Kerry fundraiser as a quartet. They slowly sought out other musicians interested in their vision of an international pop sound. By 1997, they were a 13 piece band and recorded their debut, Sympathique (1997 Heinz, 1997 Wrasse). It was originally on the band’s own Heinz label, named after Lauderdale’s dog, but it was picked up the British label Wrasse. Its blend of Latin, international cabaret and their own easy listening music from imaginary films marked them as true originals. Citroen Motors used their song “Je ne veux pas travailler (I Don’t Want To Work)” in a commercial and the tune became a major hit all over Europe; the album went Platinum in France. Sympathique got two French Grammy (Victoires de la Musique) nominations, one for Best Song for “Je ne veux pas travailler” and one for Best New Artist. The album also went gold in Greece. Thanks to their French success, the band made its international debut at the Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews and went on to tour Europe, Asia and the States. In 2003, Microsoft licensed the song “No Hay Problema” for their Windows program giving the band another international boost. The tunes also appeared in the films In the Cut, Nurse Betty, Tortilla Soup, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith and on TV shows including Dead Like Me, The Sopranos and The West Wing.
The band began performing with symphony orchestras, starting with the Oregon Symphony in 1998, and has played with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Due to the musical commitments of the band members – players perform regularly with various symphony orchestras, jazz, blues, country and rock bands - Hang on Little Tomato (2004 Heinz, 2004Wrasse) took a while to complete, but it’s even more eclectic and sophisticated than their debut. It shot to the #1 position on Amazon.com’s best selling CD chart the week it was released and featured songs in Japanese, Spanish, French, Croatian, Italian and English.
Hey Eugene! (2007 Heinz, 2007 Wrasse) was produced by Lauderdale and Forbes and includes the Russian/Latin groove of “Dosvedany Mio Bombino”, a cover of Saori Yuki’s Japanese hit “Taya Tan”, “Tiempo Perdido” a samba made famous by Carmen Miranda in 1934, “Ojala”, a cha cha by Forbes and Lauderdale and “Bukra wba’do” their first Arabic song. Jimmy Scott duets with Forbes on the standard “Tea for Two” to bring the album to a simmering close.
