From Broadway To 52nd Street
A Connecticut Yankee opened on November 3, 1927 in the Vanderbilt Theatre and ran for four hundred and eighteen performances starring William Gaxton, Constance Carpenter and Nana Bryant.Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart composed the music for this delightful romp and from the body of music came two jazz standards Thou Swell and My Heart Stood Still. Based on the Mark Twain fantasy.
The Story: A modern man is thrust back to King Arthur’s Court in a dream caused by a blow to the head given by his fiancée for flirting with a girl. In his dream appear all the people important in his life, each taking on the personality he perceives in real life. While at court he falls in love with the girl, his attempts to woo her are thwarted by Merlin and Morgan le Fay. When he awakens he leaves his fiancée and decides to marry the girl.
Jazz History: Four clubs were pivotal in setting up The Street. 21 brought glamour, high society, top politicians and the columnists who spread the fame of The Street. Tony’s at No. 57-59 attracted the literary and theater set of the famous Algonquin Roundtable. At No. 33 Leon & Eddie became home for the tourists, cloak and suiters and show biz folk who couldn’t make it at 21 or Tony’s. At Joe Helbeck’s Onyx, originally an “in” spot for studio musicians at No. 35 triggered the awareness and influx of the public through its song hits.
In the early thirties, humorist Robert Benchley along with Jack Kriendler, one of the founder-owners of 21 drank their way west to 6th Avenue and back up the even numbered side of the street east to 5th counting the number of speakeasies and coming up with no less than 38.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roberto Menescal was born on October 25, 1937 in Vitoria (ES) Brazil and by eighteen the guitarist and vocalist was making his debut as a professional along with Elis Regina, Silvia Telles and others. By the late 50s he spawned a brilliant career as a composer being in good company with Carlos Lyra, Tom Jobim and Ronaldo Boscoli.
Menescal was important to the founding of the Bossa Nova movement in which many of his songs are references to the sea, such as his best-known composition “O Barquinho” (“Little Boat”). He was one of the musicians who promoted the swing of bossa nova around the world with his compositions “The Barquinho”, “You” and “We and the Sea” and was a part of the famous 1962 Bossa Nova Concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Choosing to return to Brazil to raise a family, his fame is mostly relegated to his home country and with bossa nova fans around the world. Roberto very easily moves between musical mediums playing Latin, Brazilian pop, Musica Popular Brasiliera, Bossa Nova and Samba. He provided music for the film Bye Bye Brasil and was nominated for a Latin Grammy for his work with his son’s bossa group Bossacucanova in 2002.
With a career spanning over 50 years, he has worked with the likes of Paul Winter, Toots Thielemans, Herbie Mann, Lucio Alves, Caetano Veloso, Joao Bosco, Maysa and Alcione. Donning his producer and arranger hats he has recorded Elis Regina, Leila Pinheiro, Wanda Sa, Chico Buarque, Emilio Santiago, Fagner, Gal Costa, Nara Lion, Jeanne, Ivan Lins and Oswaldo Montenegro who are a fraction of a long list of artists.
From 1970 to 1985, Menescal was at Polygram Records as producer, director and general manager but left to found his own production company – Albatross. Since the late Nineties he has been a part of “Tokyo-River Road” to Japan, was musical director for “Nara – A Lady Say” that ran five months in Rio de Janiero, and released a three instrumental CD “Zen” set of bossa nova, bolero and jazz.
In 2008 Roberto not only celebrated his 50 years of bossa nova but also the 50th anniversary of the music genre. That same year he was the musical director for the show “50 Years of Bossa Nova” held on Ipanema Beach to an audience of over 60,000 people. Composer, producer, arranger, guitarist and vocalist Roberto Menescal is also an educator, who between performances and recordings conducts numerous workshops at universities, conferences and musical events around the world.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Don Elliott was born on October 21, 1926 in Somerville, New Jersey. He played mellophone in his high school band and played trumpet for an army band. After study at the University of Miami he added vibraphone to his arsenal of instruments. He recorded with Terry Gibbs and Buddy Rich before forming his own band.
From 1953 to 1960 he won the Down Beat readers poll several times for “miscellaneous instrument-mellophone.” Known as the “Human Instrument”, Elliott additionally performed jazz as a vocalist, trombonist, flugelhornist and percussionist. He pioneered the art of multi-track recording, composed over 5000 jingles with a countless number being prize-winning advertising jingles, prepared film scores, recorded over 60 albums and built a thriving production company.
Don scored several Broadway productions, such as The Beast In Me and A Thunder Carnival, the latter of which he performed with the Don Elliott Quartet, provided one of the voices for the novelty jazz duo the Nutty Squirrels, and lent his vocal talents to such motion picture soundtracks as The Getaway, $ (Dollars), The Hot Rock and The Happy Hooker.
His album Calypso Jazz is considered by some jazz enthusiasts to be one of the definitive calypso jazz albums. He worked with Paul Desmond, Bill Taylor, Billy Eckstine, Bill Evans, Urbie Green, Michel Legrand, George Shearing and Mundell Lowe among others over his career. Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, publisher and producer Don Elliott, who was a longtime associate of Quincy Jones, passed away of cancer in Weston, Connecticut on July 5, 1984.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote the musical Betsy as a vehicle for an actress named Belle Baker. When its producer Flo Ziegfeld decided that the show needed a big hit ballad, he went straight to Irving Berlin and asked him for one and Blue Skies was quickly dropped into the musical and on opening night on December 28, 1926 in the New Amsterdam Theatre, Rodgers and Hart – who never countenanced interpolations into their shows – sat in their house seats, fuming. The show faded away after only thirty-nine performances, however, Blue Skies went on to become part of show business history and a popular standard.
Broadway History: At its height in 1928, Broadway had been reduced to a twelve-block area between 41st and 53rd streets, however it originally encompassed an area stretching from 35th to 54th street, between 6th and 8th avenues. Although the district was comprised of nearly 80 theatres only four theatres are actually located on Broadway, The Marquis at 46th, The Palace at 47th, The Winter Garden at 50th and The Broadway at 53rd Street. The balance of the legitimate houses was located either east or west of this avenue. This however was not always the case. In 1810, if you wandered up Broadway north of the Battery towards the villages of Greenwich or Harlem farther to the north of the common pasture, Sheep’s Meadow; past Wall Street and Maiden Lane, at City Hall Park you would have passed the beautiful Park Theatre on Park Row. A second theatre, The Bowery, was built in 1821 and the migration of “mid-town” towards the north was well underway.
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From Broadway To 52nd Street
On November 8, 1926 The Imperial hosted the opening night of this new musical “Oh Kay!” starring Gertrude Lawrence, Oscar Shaw and the Fairbanks twins. The show ran for 256 performances and with the assistance of George and Ira Gershwin gave the world a Broadway melody destined to become a jazz standard – Someone To Watch Over Me.
The Story: It is 1926, the Jazz Age and the era of Prohibition. Jimmy Winter is very popular among the young ladies, and in the imaginary town of Beachampton, they are cleaning the living room of his Long Island, New York estate, declaring that “The Woman’s Touch” is exactly what his home needs. Jimmy Winter spends so little time on his Long Island estate, Kay Denham, posing as a cook, helps her rum-running brother, a titled English bootlegger, cache his illegal booze there. When Jimmy returns unexpectedly to get married, he falls in love with Kay. As a result, he helps Kay outmaneuver revenue agents and after renouncing his numerous other promises of marriage, agrees to marry Kay.
Jazz History: West 52nd Street is best known as the “Street of Jazz” or “The Street That Never Sleeps”. It ran east to west from 5th to 6th Avenues and was renowned in its heyday during and after Prohibition from 1925 to 1960. 52nd Street hosted such celebrated establishments as the Hickory House, Jimmy Ryan’s, the Famous Door, the Iron Gate, Leon & Eddie, 21, Tony’s, The Onyx, The Three Deuces, Downbeat, The Yacht Club, The Wing Club and Kelly’s Stable.
From 1935 to 1945 this monochrome of five story brownstone buildings in whose drab and cramped street level interiors – once known as English basements – flourished as speakeasies and jazz clubs and by 1936 it became also known as “Swing Street” and served as the launching pad for more singers, more hit songs and more instrumentalists than Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis or Los Angeles.
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