Ricia Washington of the Classic City Jazz. Photograph by Bob Brussack.

To mark the end of each semester, Mitos Andaya's Classic City Jazz vocal ensemble gathers at the Porterhouse Grill on Broad near North Ave. to join the resident PrimeTime Jazz trio for an evening of wonderful music from the American Songbook. Tonight's the night, folks. The trio, including Doc McCutchen -- in from Alabama -- will play a set beginning at about seven p.m. Then the trio will be joined by CCJ. I think I have all that right. Anyway, I'm there. No cover that I know about. You can eat. The food's first-rate, especially the sides. Or you can hang at the bar with me.

Baby Boomers will remember watching "Mitch Miller and the Gang" performing "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and other grand old songs on TV and inviting us all to sing along, which we frequently did. It was, I suppose, something like a karaoke for the fifties and sixties. Until I read his obituary today -- Mitch Miller has died at age 99 -- I hadn't realized that he was a world-class record producer, having made stars of Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, and others. He also, it turns out, was no slouch on the oboe. "The composer Virgil Thomson called him 'an absolutely first-rate oboist — one of the two or three great ones at that time in the world.'" When George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" opened on Broadway, Mitch was in the pit orchestra. And that oboe you hear on Charlie Parker's recordings with a string orchestra? Mitch.