From Broadway To 52nd Street
Pickwick opened at the 46th Street Theatre on October 4, 1965 and ran 56 performances with the music composed by Cyril Ornadel and Leslie Bricusse. The song that rose to great heights is the Great American songbook and became a jazz standard was If I Ruled The World.
The Story: Set in England in 1828, the story centers on wealthy Samuel Pickwick and his valet Sam Weller, who are in a debtors’ prison where they recall the misadventures that led to their imprisonment. On the previous Christmas Eve, Pickwick introduced his friend Wardle, Wardle’s daughters, Emily and Isabella, and their Aunt Rachael to Nathaniel Winkle, Augustus Snodgrass, and Tracy Tupman, three members of the Pickwick Club. Soon, Alfred Jingle joined them and tricked Tupman into paying for his ticket to a ball that evening. Upon learning Rachael is an heiress, Jingle set out to win her hand and eventually succeeded. Pickwick engages Sam Weller as his valet and, through a series of misunderstandings, he inadvertently leads his landlady, Mrs. Bardell, to believe he has proposed marriage to her. Pickwick is charged with breach of promise and hauled into court, where he is found guilty as charged and sentenced to prison when he stubbornly refuses to pay her compensation.
Jazz History: In 1965 Miles Davis records ESP with his new quintet; pianist/vocalist Nat King Cole dies of cancer; Herbie Hancock records Maiden Voyage, a classic modal tune, with the other members of Miles Davis’ group plus trumpeter Freddie Hubbard; trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis form a rehearsal orchestra that is to last for years and is still in existence today; and John Coltrane records Ascension, a free jazz experiment influenced by Ornette Coleman.
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