From Broadway To 52nd Street
Sweeney Todd opened at the Uris Theatre on March 1, 1979 and ran for 557 performances. The musical starred Angela Landsbury and Len Cariou with music composed by Stephen Sondheim from which came the song Pretty Women that entered into the jazz pantheon. The show would also win Best Musical for that year.
The Story: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was set in the 19th century London. Todd is a barber who dispatches his victims by pulling a lever as they sit in his barber chair. Todd “polishes them off”, slitting their throats with his straight razor before dispatching them into the basement via the revolving trapdoor. After Todd has robbed his dead victims of their goods, Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime assists him in disposing of the bodies by baking their flesh into meat pies and selling them to the unsuspecting customers of her pie shop. Todd’s barbershop is situated at 186 Fleet Street and is connected to Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop by means of an underground passage.
Jazz History: The end of the 70s decade saw trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis in New York and a hard bop revival was soon underway. Bassist and composer Charles Mingus dies in Mexico at the age of 56. Vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson dies on May 9 in Detroit, Michigan. A jam session at the Brecker brothers’ club will produce the group Steps Ahead. Gil Scott Heron is experimenting with a new form of music which involves spoken poetry set to music, similar to what will later be known as hip hop and rap; the first Sony Walkman (model TPS-L2) hits the market and two years later the word “Walkman” enters the dictionary, and the product changes listening habits forever.
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