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Music

Hot tickets: A Boston orchestra pops by

By JOHN FLEMING
Published February 10, 2005

Keith Lockhart passed a significant milestone this month. It was 10 years ago that he was appointed conductor of the Boston Pops, one of the most prominent positions in the music world. Lockhart had a couple of tough acts to follow in Arthur Fiedler, a Boston institution for half a century, and Hollywood composer John Williams, but he has only upped the Pops' profile with extensive touring and last year's release of the orchestra's first recording on its own label, Sleigh Ride.

Lockhart, 45, is leading the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra in a nine-concert tour of Florida and South Carolina that comes to Clearwater on Wednesday. On the agenda is a program called "All That Jazz," with arrangements of big band classics by Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Perez Prado. The New York Voices are featured in Orange Colored Sky, Stardust, Me and Julio and Sing, Sing, Sing.

The orchestra Lockhart leads on tour is not exactly the ensemble many people think it is. The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra is an excellent orchestra, but it is not the renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra. Nor is it the Boston Pops Orchestra, which is the Boston Symphony minus its principal players. Instead, it is a freelance orchestra formed by the Boston Symphony to give summertime concerts in a band shell on the esplanade by the Charles River, while the symphony is in residence at Tanglewood in western Massachusetts. Under Lockhart, the Pops has made 23 U.S. tours and four to Japan and Korea.

Lockhart and the Pops play at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Clearwater's Ruth Eckerd Hall, which is a big improvement over the sports arenas they often appear in these days. $70-$125. 727 791-7400; www.rutheckerdhall.com

The Go-Go's still have the beat. Yes, even after all these years and all the hiatuses, side bands and solo careers since forming back in Los Angeles in 1978.

All five of the original ladies - Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Jane Weidlin, Kathy Valentine and Gina Schock - bring their new-wavey pop to Jannus Landing on Friday in the form of hits Our Lips Are Sealed, We Got the Beat, Vacation and Head Over Heels.

The Go-Go's perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Jannus Landing, 16 Second St. N, St. Petersburg. $32. (727) 896-2276. - GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic

Mali to Memphis, a double-bill show Wednesday night at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, explores the musical links between West Africa and the Mississippi Delta, with the help of a pair of first-class guitarists. Habib Koite, from Mali, specializes in hypnotic, earthy grooves full of African origins and contemporary Western influences. Guy Davis, the son of Ruby Dee and the late Ossie Davis, mixes folk, gospel and storytelling with his rootsy blues. Davis' Legacy CD landed on several critics' lists of the best albums of 2004.

The show is Wednesday at 8 p.m; tickets are $19.50 and $32.50. Call 813 229-7827 or go to www.tbpac.org PHILIP BOOTH, Times correspondent

[Last modified February 9, 2005, 17:36:36]