From Broadway To 52nd Street
The Majestic Theatre opened the curtain for Carousel for the first time on April 19, 1945. With music composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the musical ran for eight hundred and ninety performances. John Raitt and Jan Clayton had the title roles in this play adapted from the famous Molnar story of Liliom, from which came two songs that would endear themselves for years as jazz standards – What’s The Use Of Won’drin’ and If I Loved You.
The Story: Billy Bigelow, a shy New England carnival barker falls in love with Julie Jordan. Eventually winning Julie’s heart, he later discovers she is pregnant. Jobless, Billy decides he must provide for his son, or daughter, he agrees to join his criminal friend Jigger Craig in a robbery to earn extra money. The plan misfires and Billy kills himself rather than being caught. Before a heavenly judge he pleads for another chance to return to earth to earn his redemption and see his daughter. When his daughter refuses his gift of a star he has stolen from the sky, he slaps her and returns to purgatory. The widowed Julie and child are left to continue to live starkly. The story is set in Maine where majestic backdrops add emotional emphasis.
Jazz History: It was known simply as The Street and as historian Arnold Shaw stated in his book 52nd Street, “If you flagged a taxi in NYC and asked to be taken to The Street, you would be driven, without giving a number or an avenue, to Fifty-Second Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues” By the late 1940s, as the jazz clubs turned into strip joints, many bemoaned the death of The Street. They considered this era to be the block’s decline.
In 1948, Time magazine decried the change from jazz to bump-n-grind: “where nightclubs in sorry brownstones crowd each other like bums on a breadline”, an era was all but over. Swing was still there, but it was more hips than horns. Barrelhouse had declined and burlesque was back. There was little jazz left on 52nd Street and even the customers had changed. There were fewer crew haircuts, pipes and sports jackets and more bald spots, cigars and paunches.
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