Eli Newberger interview

Eli & the Hot Six is led by the tuba player and pianist Eli Newberger, a legendary figure in traditional jazz circles. Newberger, a world-renowned pediatrician and Harvard Medical School professor, was a co-founder of the New Black Eagle Jazz Band in 1971. On Monday, June 22, Eli & the Hot Six will perform Swingin’ Gershwin at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield.

The Hot Six features the vocalist Rebecca Sullivan; saxophonist and clarinetist Ted Casher; banjo player Jimmy Mazzy; trombonist Herb Gardner; trumpeter Bo Winiker; drummer Jeff Guthery; and Bob Winter, pianist with the Boston Pops.

In the interview I conducted with Newberger on June 18, he told me of the mentors program at the New England Conservatory of Music through which he met Sullivan; his early days as a tuba player in Mount Vernon, NY; the wide-ranging program of music related to George and Ira Gershwin that the Hot Six will play on Monday; and the performance of “Perdido” that’s seen below and heard on a new recording by the Hot Six at the Sherborn Inn in Sherborn, Mass.