Television: Roker, Lauer Want Delbecq on “Today”

After seeing him perform live in concert on Saturday night at Florence Gould Hall, Today Show hosts Al Roker and Matt Lauer phoned the Today Show’s producers over the weekend to urge them to book French Pianist Benoit Delbecq and powerhouse jazz trio “The Bad Plus” on an upcoming show.

“It was the weirdest and most wonderful music I’ve heard in a longtime,” says Lauer, who is married to the Dutch model Annette Roque. “We have so few European performers on the show, this is really someone we should grab while he is available.”

Delbecq performed with powerhouse jazz trio The Bad Plus in the sold-out Saturday night show.

For his part, Roker was impressed by the “somewhat odd” fact that Delbecq prepares the piano with various materials such as eraser bits and carved wooden twigs before each show. “Not to sound like an advert, but the resulting sound really and truly is a complex, spacious sound that hardly seems to be emanating from a single instrument.”

Overall, says Roker, “There’s a feeling here that perhaps too much of our Toady Show stuff comes canned, straight from large PR firms. We’d like to get at least a few more spontaneous, unusual, outside-the-box guests on the show stuff on the show – people nobody has ever heard of -- to help us continue our winning edge. Help some of the little guys succeed, and not just always wait until they are already a huge success.”

Roker may feel the desire to give some unknown people a break on the show because of how his own career trajectory evolved: Roker rose to fame at least in part because of an elevator race on “Late Night With David Letterman” that gave his personality a one-in-a-lifetime chance to shine on the national stage.

“I don’t want to be one of those celebrities who succeeds and then pulls the ladder up behind me so that no one else can follow,” says Roker.

Along with this unusual request, Lauer, who grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut -- his dad was a bicycle company executive – says he is seeking more spiritual guests for the show these days. “People who have something meaningful to say,” he says. “My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that. I’d love to see us book someone like Sylvia Boorstein or Lama Surya Das, people who genuinely have something real to say." Lauer and his wife now have three kids: Jack Matthew, Romy, and Thijs.

This wouldn’t the first time that Lauer has been at least mildly critical of one of his own shows. When Lauer hosted “The Greatest American” on the Discovery Channel, which used Internet and telephone voting by viewers to select the winner, he criticized the show because it tended to favor well-known figures over others who had less influence in pop culture.

Worth noting is the fact that Today Show host Meredith Viera also has a wacky side: Vieira "hosts" a spoof of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” (which she hosts in real life) called “Who Wants to Be King of the Jungle?” on the 2nd disc of the Special Edition DVD of The Lion King 1 1/2. Timon the Meerkat serves as the contestant; Pumbaa as an audience member and the "Phone an Animal" lifeline. Other voices on that DVD include Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Julie Kavner, and Jerry Stiller.

Delbecq appeared in New York as part of the three-week long French Institute/Alliance Francaise “Crossing the Line” festival. Among the upcoming events in that festival is “Food Futures,” a weekend of culinary-based programs hosted by French television personality and chef Julie Andrieu, who will explore new techniques in the culinary arts with top innovative chefs from New York and France on September 27 and 28.