Veteran TV musicians bringing 'Late Night Stories' to Pittsburgh for 1-night show

The musicians of late-night television often get to witness notable figures share their stories, from off to the side.

But in a unique show, some of those same musicians will take center stage for “Late Night Stories” on Feb. 15 at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild’s Jazz concert hall in a night of music and storytelling.

Ray Angry, who plays keyboards with The Roots as part of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” will be joined by three other late night luminaries:

• Guitarist Felicia Collins, who has toured with Madonna, played in the CBS Orchestra for all of David Letterman’s tenure as the host of “Late Show with David Letterman.”
• Bassist Will Lee was an original member of The World’s Most Dangerous Band, otherwise known as the house band for “Late Night With David Letterman,” continuing to play during Letterman’s stints on NBC and CBS.
• Drummer Joe Saylor, a native of Indiana, Pa., plays for the house band for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“So they’ve put together a collection of fun stories that no one has ever heard before,” said Marty Ashby, the vice president and executive producer of MCG Jazz. “Because, I’ll tell you, I had lunch with them in New York (a few) weeks ago, the four of them. And these stories are (expletive) nuts, man. They’re hilarious. It’s really crazy (expletive).”

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Angry is serving as the MCG Jazz artist-in-residence for the 2024-25 season, so this will be the second concert he’s produced with the local group.

“Ray Angry is an incredible musician that can play anything, from classical to jazz to obviously hip-hop and many other things,” Ashby said. “And we had met him when he was here for the American Symphony Orchestra League conference two years ago, talking about writing for major symphony orchestras. And basically, we fell in love. He fell in love with our program, what we do here with kids and with music. And we all fell in love with him as a person and his music.”

The four artists have never all played together, so there have been some email exchanges, and they’ll get together the day before the show to rehearse. In a homecoming of sorts, Saylor will get to play for the first time at the MCG Jazz Hall, where he grew up coming to performances by the likes of Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie.

“Ray’s the musical director and will be working with the cats to figure out what are the actual songs that we’re going to tie to the stories,” Ashby said. “It’ll be jazz, but it’ll be more than jazz. When you watch these TV shows, there’s some jazz but it’s mostly all kinds of (music), right? So the music is going to be across the board from pop (and) rock with a jazz slant, let’s put it that way.”

Ashby said the magic of late-night TV should be on display in the one-night-only performance.

“On the TV shows, you know how there’s play-on music, a guest comes on and the band plays 20 seconds of something? Sometimes those are literally put together 30 seconds before the cat comes on,” he said. “That’s how spontaneous late-night TV can be, so they’re gonna keep some of that spontaneity in the show, which I think it’s just gonna be a gas.

“I think people are gonna really enjoy the spontaneity of how late-night TV really works.”