Columnist Kate Maddox: A Brown out at Blue Note

Kate Maddox

Friday, Jan. 5, 2001 | 9:30 a.m.

Kate Maddox's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at 259-2309 or kmaddox@lasvegassun.com.

People are still calling, demanding refunds for James Brown's shoddy New Year's Eve concert at the Blue Note Las Vegas.

Brown spent most of his time onstage ranting about the Pope, the club's sound system and the astronomical $30 million he said he received for his appearance. He also fought loudly with Blue Note employees while he was dressed in a bathrobe. When he finally got around to singing, club manager Lee Vlastaris said Brown barely lasted an hour and that most of the sound came from the band and not from the pipes of the Godfather of Soul.

"(Brown's) whole behavior was not part of the program," Vlasteris said. "It had a tremendous effect on the paying public, and people were obviously displeased." Vlastaris added that the Blue Note was unfortunately dealing with refunding partygoers' $300 ticket prices as a result of the debacle.

When asked whether the jazz club would ask Brown's management to fork over the refund losses, Vlastaris said, "The (Blue Note) corporate office will do whatever legally needs to be done to compensate what happened with the public."

Brown also performed gigs at the club last Friday and Saturday. Some attendees at those performances said things went well the first night, but that Brown's time onstage was extremely limited and one source said the singer seemed "out of it" for the duration of the concert. The show on the 30th reportedly went off without incident.

A call to Brown's office in Atlanta was unsuccessful. A receptionist there was unwilling to answer questions and said, "No one is here to talk to you." Another brief chat, this time with Brown's manager Judge Al Bradley, ended abruptly. After asking about the New Year's Eve performance, Bradley said that I would "have to talk to James about that," and hung up.

A former mob boss' daughter, with extensive ties to Las Vegas, was found dead from a single gunshot wound to the head at her home in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve.

Susan Berman was the daughter of Bugsy Siegel's former business partner, David Berman. Berman grew up mingling with gangsters and high rollers in Vegas and eventually wrote two books about her experiences, "Easy Street" and "Lady Las Vegas."

In 1996 Berman wrote and produced an award-winning documentary on Vegas for the A&E network. Her manager, Lyle Brenner, told Daily Variety that at the time of her death Berman had been working on a pitch for an ABC TV movie based on her diaries, as well as a Showtime series titled "Sin City."

Brenner also told Variety, "I don't know if there was anything she was working on that had any relevance to the current Mafia. She had been talking to a lot of people in Las Vegas recently, people who had a past."

Police are treating Berman's death as a homicide.

Congratulations are in order for the Blue Man Group. On Wednesday the group's debut album, "Audio," was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental. It's the same style of musical mishmash they play in their show, and snippets from "Audio" can also be heard on commercials for ABC's "The Practice" as well as during sports telecasts on NBC and CBS.

OK, that doesn't help, I know. But like the eclectic production itself, the music is kind of hard to describe. The Grammy Awards are Feb. 21, and here's hoping the Blue Men stick it to Kenny G.