Ink Spots, Julius La Rosa grace Orono stage

Seems like such a waste of good dance music to have to actually sit through the annual big-band concert at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono. We should be dancing in a high school gym under a sky of glittery cut-out stars and puffy angel-hair clouds, or at least hold a martini in one hand, a very long cigarette in the other while making eyes at someone in a 1940s-style club.

Even without the dance-room romance, the big-band concert is among every season’s most popular shows. Last night’s Big Band Salute was no exception. A large audience came to hear the old jazz tunes made famous by Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and the Ink Spots. This year’s host was Abe Most, virtuoso clarinetist whose performance credits include the orchestras of Tommy Dorsey, Les Brown and David Rose. Most led a 12-piece band through old favorites such as “Star Dust,” “Begin the Beguine” and “What Is This Thing Called Love.”

The highlights of the first act were the four doo-wop singers who make up the latest arrangement of the Ink Spots. Led by the funny and forgetful 83-year-old Johnny Smith (the only one who sang with the original 1950s group), the musically manicured Ink Spots sang with elegance, spunk and style.

If you haven’t heard silky high tenor James Taylor sing “If I Didn’t Care,” then you’re missing out on one of the true treasures of this type of music. The audience greatly appreciated the humor and talent of these smooth singers, and took to its feet in a combination of appreciation and excitement for “You Can Have Her, I Don’t Want Her.”

In the second half of the show, singer Julius La Rosa burst onto the stage with his quasi-Las Vegas shtick of corny jokes and razzle-dazzle music. A little man with a big voice, La Rosa wins the prize for being able to hold the first note of a song for the longest time, and for telling show-biz stories that seem to have come directly from the same era as the music.

It was clear that the musicians were on the last leg of a tiring two-month bus tour that has taken them from Los Angeles to Florida, and ends up three weeks from now in Detroit. But Abe Most’s light-hearted humor and well-performed music is the type that always finds a cheering audience at the Maine Center.