The singer China Forbes has called her band Pink Martini “musical ambassadors.” That description is fitting, given that the band has recorded songs in 25 different languages and performed with orchestras and music legends all over the globe. Their eclectic blend of jazz, pop and retro lounge music has had the world dancing and singing along since they began in Portland back in 1994. Pink Martini will perform at the Eastern on Thursday, Feb. 9, and lead singer China Forbes joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom for a chat ahead of the concert.
Interview highlights:
A band known for enthusiastic and wide-ranging polyglotism:
“I love singing in French. Our first song that we wrote together was the song, which has become a standard in France, and is known all over the world for the chorus, ‘Je ne veux pas travailler,’” said Forbes. “That was partially how it became a hit because [French workers] were striking and singing our song. And then our song was on a commercial for Citroën cars, and it just kind of all happened at the same time and spread like wildfire, and it’s my favorite song we’ve ever written… Just singing in French makes me feel close to my father, because he was from a French background, French and American… His grandmother was French, and my great-grandmother, and he just would be so happy if you were still alive to know that we have such a big career in France.”
“The repertoire is so broad, and the different languages that we sing in is something [founding member] Thomas [Lauderdale] started from the beginning. He loved the sound of other languages and preferred the sound of other languages to English. So anytime we did a song that could be in English, like ‘Never on Sunday,’ we did it in the original Greek,” Forbes explained. “Then, as we started to tour, it was such a great connection we had with our fans when we could sing a song in their language. And we just started adding more and more and more, and Pink Martini has always been completely impossible to pin down; it’s so diverse.”
A painter, an athlete, a scholar and a singer:
“I come from a family of painters, and my grandmother on my father’s side taught me to paint when I was in high school with oil paint, and I loved painting,” recounted Forbes. “When I went to Harvard, I majored in visual and environmental studies, which was the art major. And I also, at the age of eight, decided I wanted to be a singer when I grew up. So I always sang.”
She continued, “I really wanted to be in a musical, but whenever the chance would’ve arisen, it was taken away. In ninth grade at my school, there was always a musical, but my class voted to do a play. And then, when I went to high school, I played sports, and the only musicals happened during the times that I was on sports teams…. Then when I got to Harvard, I was in my first musical right away, the first semester of freshman year, and it was ‘Evita,’ and it was a huge production. Of course, I was not playing Eva Perón, because I was a freshman, but I was playing the mistress, which was the next best thing. So I got to sing a song all by myself on the stage, and it was incredible. And I started performing in theater, both drama and musical theater, and continued all throughout my college years and into my first years in New York after college.”
A penchant for non-musician collaborators:
“That’s also his favorite thing to do, Thomas. He loves [for] someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, to do something, which is, I think he just likes the spontaneity and the freshness of it, and the excitement of the person who never normally gets to sing with a band,” said Forbes.
“With the fashion designer, Alber Elbaz, we performed at his 10th anniversary at Lanvin in Paris, and he was so warm and friendly and just amazing, and he made a beautiful dress for me to perform in…, and we heard that he always wanted to sing ‘Que Sera, Sera,’ and so he got up and sang with us, and I videotaped it, and other people filmed it. And sadly, he died during COVID, and we lost him. And I happened to be in Paris, and I went to the Museum of Fashion, and they have a show on him right now. And in the exhibit, there’s a room where he’s singing that ‘Que Sera, Sera’ with Thomas playing, and I had no idea what I was stumbling into.”
Pink Martini performs on Feb. 9 at the Eastern. Tickets and more information are available here.
