From Broadway To 52nd Street
On November 8, 1930 at the Alvin Theatre, the curtain rose for Music In The Air starring Walter Slezak, Natalie Hall, Tullio Carminetti and Katherine Carrington. Running for 342 performances and the tune, The Song Is You was written and composed by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein becomes a jazz classic standard.
The Story: We follow Karl who writes a song and along with his Bavarian villages trek to Munich to have it published. In Munich, Karl is pursued by a flirtatious prima donna, while composer Bruno falls in love with Karl’s sweetheart. Her indifference to Bruno only lends to fuel Bruno’s ardor and he confesses to her that no matter what melody he creates, it’s always her. The romance and high hopes prove fruitless, so all return home together.
Jazz History: Art Tatum was to become one of The Street’s brightest stars and legendary giants with a following that brought him the highest paid salary to any performer. He moved between The Onyx, The Three Deuces and The Downbeat and was always in great demand for private parties and was once paid a hundred dollars at a George Gershwin shindig to perform during his sixty-minute intermission at the club. With his vision limited to 25% in one eye, he would often ask a friend to walk him down to Hanson’s Drugstore at 51st and 7th, New York’s equivalent to Schwab’s in Hollywood, where it became a gathering place of theatre-goers, celebrities and hopefuls and where Walter Winchell regularly stopped by. Tatum always took a seat at the L-shaped counter and when it was full he would ask someone to drop a handful of coins on the counter and impress the onlookers with his acuteness of hearing by identifying each coin. Art Tatum lived, drank and died with the prodigality that characterized his keyboard pyrotechnics. Frequently he stayed up for days at a time with only catnaps to sustain him or slept long stretches only to awake instantly the moment his hand was touched. Of the 46 pianists queried after his death, 30 named him as their favorite pianist.
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Eddie Palmieri was born of Puerto Rican parentage on December 15, 1936 in Bronx, New York and when he was only 8 years old, he would musically accompany his older brother Charlie and together they entered and participated in many talent contests
Palmieri continued his education in the city’s public school system where he was constantly exposed to music, specifically jazz. He took piano lessons and performed at Carnegie Hall when he was 11 years old. Influenced by Thelonious Monk and McCoy Tyner and inspired by his brother he formed his own band in 1950 at age 14.
In 1961, Palmieri formed the band Conjunto La Perfecta, featuring legendary singer Ismael Quintana and replaced the traditional violins with trombones to create a more robust sound by including a touch of jazz in his recordings and incorporating a popular Cuban rhythm known as Mozambique.
Eddie disbanded the band in 1968 but three years later was recording with his brother and in 1974 was the first Latin musician to win a Grammy Award for Best Latin Recording with The Sun of Latin Music. Through the Eighties he continued performing and recording, winning two Grammys for his Palo Pa Rumba and Solito albums.
In the 1990s Palmieri was part of various concerts and recordings with the Fania All-Stars and the Tico All-Stars; he introduced La India with the production of Llego La India via Eddie Palmieri released in 1992. In 2000, Palmieri announced his retirement from the world of music. He recorded Masterpiece with Tito Puente, won 2 Grammys and was also named the “Outstanding Producer of the Year” by the National Foundation of Popular Culture. Palmieri has won a total of 9 Grammy Awards in his career, most recently for his 2006 album with Brian Lynch – Simpatico.
Palmieri teamed up with longtime trumpeter and band member Brian Lynch, has worked with Phil Woods, Lila Downs, Donald Harrison, Conrad Herwig, Gregory Tardy, Edsel Gomez and Rubén Rodríguez among others. With more than three-dozen albums to his credit he continues to perform and tour.
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Ben Tucker was born on December 13, 1930 in Nashville, Tennessee. By age twelve he began on trumpet and later on the bass, quickly making a name around town. In high school he taught himself to play the tuba and at Tennessee State learned the fundamentals of bass violin on his own. Following a stint in the Air Force, he settled in California playing with Art Pepper and Shorty Rogers, among others and the legendary “Jazz of Two Cities”.
By the early 1960’s, he was regularly performing and recording with Herbie Mann, Billy Taylor, Dexter Gordon, Buddy Rich, Quincy Jones, Marian McPartland, and Mel Torme. He would go on to play with Gerry Mulligan, Peggy Lee, Tommy Flanagan, Ellis Marsalis, Cy Coleman and Red Norvo among others.
A prodigious composer of over 300 titles, many are jazz standards like “Comin’ Home Baby”, “Devilette”, “The Message,” “ Right Here, Right Now” and his most famous discovery and publishing being the Bobby Hebb tune “Sunny”.
Bassist Ben Tucker was named as one of the world’s Top Ten Bass Players in 1959 by Metronome Magazine, was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Kennedy Center for the Arts, formed his own production company, bought a radio station, received a Clio, produced “Multiplication Rock”, the musical education tool, and created the Telfair Jazz Society and opened and operated Hard-Hearted Hannah’s, a Savannah jazz club.
Bassist Ben Tucker passed away on on June 4, 2013 of a traffic collision on Hutchinson Island, Georgia.
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Bob Dorough, born December 12, 1923 in Cherry Hill, Arkansas, he grew up in Texas. He learned to play piano and would play in an Army band during World War II. After discharge he attended North Texas State University, majoring in composition and minored in piano.
Around 1950 Bob moved to New York City and was playing piano in a Times square tap studio where he was introduced to the boxer sugar Ray Robinson, who was putting together a song and dance revue. He was hired, became the show’s music director and toured the U.S. and Europe. Leaving the revue in Paris in 1954, he recorded with singer Blossom Dearie during that time. Returning to the U.S. and moving to Los Angeles, he played various gigs, including a job between sets by comedian Lenny Bruce. Dorough released his first album, Devil May Care, in 1956 that contained a version of Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite”.
Dorough penned the lyrics for Miles Davis on the Christmas song “Blue Xmas” and a few years later recorded “Nothing Like You” that is on the Sorcerer album. He worked with Allen Ginsberg, and his adventurous style influenced Mose Allison among other singers. He is perhaps best known as a voice and primary composer of many of the songs used in “Schoolhouse Rock!” during the Seventies and Eighties.
The cool jazz pianist and composer he has penned with bassist Ben Tucker the tune “Comin’ Home Baby” that earned Mel Torme two Grammy nominations and a Top 40 hit. A vocalese singer, he has released 28 vocal jazz albums as a leader, four singles and 17 as a sideman and/or guest over the last 50 years. Bob Dorough received an honorary degree from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania with a Doctor of Fine Arts, was named Artist of the Year in 2002 by the Pennsylvania Governor’s Awards for the Arts. He garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Recording for Children and was inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame prior to passing away on April 23, 2018 in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania at age 94.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Girl Crazy opened on October 14, 1930 at the Alvin Theatre with a run of 272 performances starring Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers singing music composed by the Gershwin Brothers. Two songs emerged from this musical to become jazz classics – Embraceable You and I Got Rhythm.
The Story: A tale where Danny Churchill, in an attempt to flee nightclubs, gambling casinos and women, hires a NY taxi driver to take him to Custerville, Arizona. There he hopes to rest on a dude ranch. Before long he has transformed the ranch into a club with gambling rooms and bevies of girls. He woos and wins the heart of one of the girls, Ginger, who is the daughter of the local saloonkeeper.
Broadway History:Though the Depression was in full swing, stars were still being made as musicals and revues continued to emerge on Broadway. From 1931 – 42 this decade made stars of Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr, who went on to fame as the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion in The Wizard Of Oz; the double act of Gaxton & Moore, who were part of the comic backbone of vaudeville, got their individual starts on Broadway when Gaxton, having mastered the character of a loveable, oblivious bumbler resembling Elmer Fudd with a Porky Pig personality, performed in George M. Cohan’s Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway in 1906, and the much younger Moore was the romantic lead in Rodgers and Hart’s A Connecticut Yankee in 1927. They were paired in Gershwin’s “Of Thee I Sing” and continued their successful partnership well into the ‘40s. The tradition of the double act was later upheld by the likes of Abbott & Costello, Lewis & Martin and Burns & Allen.
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