From Broadway To 52nd Street
The Pajama Game drew back the first curtain at the St. James Theatre on May 13, 1954 and ran a record 1063 performances catapulting the show into the register of blockbuster musicals. Eddie Foy Jr., John Raitt, Janis Paige and Shirley MacLaine starred in the musical with music written and composed by Richard Adler & Jerry Ross. Jazz has had the privilege to give the song Hey There perpetual encores.
The Story: Adapted from the Broadway play, it’s a story of Sid, a workshop superintendent who must deal with a union demand for a 7.5-cent raise at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory. A strike is imminent and Babe the leader of the grievance committee leads the fight. However Sid is attracted to Babe and ensues a course of romance but is deflected. With slowdowns and machinery breakdowns promoting her cause, Sid reluctantly fires her. However he is convinced there is merit to Babe’s championship of the union and plots to get a peek at the books kept by Gladys.
Taking Gladys out to a nightclub Sid wheedles the keys from her but before he can leave the two are discovered by Babe. Sid gets a look at the books, sees that the boss has already tack on the 71/2 cents to production but has keeping the profits for himself. Sid confronts the boss, gets him to agree to the raise, goes to the union rally to bring the news and peace to his love life. Finally accepting her feelings for Sid, she falls for him. Everyone goes out to celebrate at Hernando’s Hideaway.
Jazz History: The free jazz movement, coming to prominence in the late ’50s, spawned very few standards. Free jazz’s unorthodox structures and performance techniques are not as amenable to transcription as other jazz styles. However, “Lonely Woman”, a blues by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, is perhaps the closest thing to a standard in free jazz, having been recorded by dozens of notable performers.
Free jazz is an approach to the music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz composers varied widely, the common feature was a dis-satisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features chord changes or tempos. While usually considered experimental and avant-garde, free jazz has also oppositely been conceived as an attempt to return jazz to its “primitive”, often religious roots, and emphasis on collective improvisation.
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