From Broadway To 52nd Street
She Loves Me opened the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on April 23, 1963 and the show ran for 301 performances. Sheldon Harnick penned the lyrics and Jerry Bock composed the music to the tune She Loves Me which has entered into the pantheon of jazz standards. The musical starred Barbara Cook, Daniel Massey, Barbara Baxley and Jack Cassidy.
The Story: Set in Hungary in the late 1930s, the story follows two coworkers George and Amalia who unwittingly meet through a Lonely Hearts column. As the two anonymously write love letters to each other, things don’t go so well at work. Not knowing that they are each other’s pen pal, they constantly fight. Further Georg’s boss, Mr. Maraczek, who thinks George is having an affair with his wife, constantly criticizes George at work. Eventually, the boss realizes that another clerk is having the affair. In the end Georg and Amalia discover that they are each other’s pen pal and they fall in love.
Broadway History: The alternative theatre movement aimed to break these commercial and psychological restraints by bonding spectator and audience and by lessening the theatrical illusion of an imagined space and time. Conventional theatre taught the spectator to lose himself in the fictional onstage time, space, and characters; conversely, alternative theatre relied on the spectator’s complete consciousness of the present. This present is the real time and space shared by the audience and the performers; only when the audience consciously perceives the present can they perceive the theatrical experience as relevant to their lives, and not as escapist fiction. The primary importance of the spectator’s consciousness of the present is that he is an active force in creating the theatrical event rather than a passive observer of a ready-made production.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Oliver! opened at the Imperial Theatre on January 6, 1963 and ran 774 performances. Lionel Bart wrote the book and the lyrics and composed the music. One of his songs, Where Is Love became a jazz favorite.
The Story: Musical adaptation of Dickens story in which a young Oliver, an orphan in a workhouse, asks for more of the meager gruel from a surprised matron. Punished for beating up another boy who made fun of his dead mother and locked in a coffin but he escapes. Living on the streets of London he is befriended by the Artful Dodger who introduces him to Fagin, a criminal teaching young boys to become pickpockets. The thieving children are manipulated by their leader and mentor Fagin, and the young Oliver, who through circumstances is forced into a life of crime. Greed of the workhouse caretakers leads to Oliver’s ultimate rescue by a kindly old gentleman who realizes Oliver is his great nephew. The musical, as is the book, was a powerful statement on the 19th century poverty, crime and government neglect crying out for social reform.
Jazz History: By the 1960s, most of the legendary clubs were razed or fell into disrepair. The last club there closed its doors in 1968. Today, the street is full of banks, shops, and department stores and shows little trace of its jazz history. The block from 5th to 6th Avenues is formally co-named “Swing Street” and one block west is called “W. C. Handys Place”.
The 21 Club is the sole surviving club on 52nd Street that also existed during the 1940s. The venue for the original Birdland at 1674 Broadway (between 52nd & 53rd), which came into existence in 1949, is now a “gentlemen’s club”. The current Birdland is on 44th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marcus Printup was born on January 24, 1967 in Conyers, Georgia. His first musical experiences hearing the fiery gospel music his parents sang in church and didn’t discover jazz until he was a senior in high school.
He is a versatile musician who started playing trumpet in the fifth grade, played funk as a teenager, and while attending the University of North Florida on music scholarship, won the “International Trumpet Guild Jazz Trumpet Competition”, and was a member of a ten-piece group called “Soul Reason for the Blues”. In 1991 he met pianist Marcus Roberts, his mentor to this day, who introduced him to Wynton Marsalis, and was induction into the Jazz @ Lincoln Center Orchestra two years later.
Marcus has performed and/or recorded with Betty Carter, Dianne Reeves, Eric Reed, Cyrus Chestnut, Wycliffe Gordon, Carl Allen, Marcus Roberts among many others, not to mention a few of his projects as a leader, Song for the Beautiful Woman, Hub Songs, The New Boogaloo, Bird of Paradise, London Lullaby and his most recent, Desire.
Printup’s screen debut was in the 1999 movie “Playing By Heart” and also recorded on the film’s soundtrack. He tours annually with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, spending one-third of his year touring world wide, and nourishes his educator side by teaching youth and experienced musicians and contributing to several camps annually.
More Posts: trumpet
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jason Moran was born January 21, 1975 and grew up in Houston, Texas. He began playing the piano when he was six, though he had no love for the instrument until, at the age of 13, he first heard the song “Round Midnight” by Thelonious Monk and switched his efforts from classical music to jazz. He attended Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and then enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with pianist Jaki Byard. While still in college Moran also received instruction from other avant-garde pianists including Muhal Richard Abrams and Andrew Hill.
In 1997, when Moran was a senior at the Manhattan School of Music he was invited to join the band of saxophonist Greg Osby for a European tour. Osby liked his playing and Moran continued to play with the group upon their return to the United States, making his first recorded appearance on Osby’s 1997 “Further Ado” for Blue Note, subsequently appearing on several Osby albums. This led to Blue Note signing Moran and his debut “Soundtrack to Human Motion” was released in 1999.
He has since released several albums playing with contemporaries Stefon Harris, Lonnie Plaxico, Eric Harland, Tarus Mateen, Nasheet Waits, Sam Rivers and Marvin Sewell as well as collaborations with Charles Lloyd, Cassandra Wilson, Joe Lovano, Don Byron, Lee Konitz, Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Von Freeman and Christian McBride.
Jason has been commissioned to create a number of works by the Walker Art Center, the Dia Art Foundation and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has been voted Up-n-Coming Jazz Musician by the Jazz Journalists Association, Down Beat’s critics poll voted him Rising Star Jazz Artist, Rising Star Pianist, and Rising Star Composer for three years straight from 2003-2005, named Jazz Artist of the Year in 2007 by Playboy, and was named a USA Prudential Fellow.
Pianist Jason Moran is currently working on a multimedia project “In My Mind” inspired by Thelonious Monk’s 1959 large band concert at Town Hall. He serves as music advisor to the Kennedy Center, serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, as he continues to compose, perform, tour and record.
From Broadway To 52nd Street
Stop The World I Want To Get Off opened at the Shubert Theatre on October 2, 1962. Running for 555 performances The music and lyrics were composed by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. The musical starred Anthony Newley as Littlechap and Anna Quayle portrays Evie. Fortunately for the jazz world one of their tunes would enter the pantheon of jazz classics – What Kind Of Fool Am I.
The Story: Set against the backdrop of a circus, it focuses on Littlechap, whose first major step towards improving his lot is to marry Evie, his boss’ daughter. Saddled with the responsibilities of a family, he allows his growing dissatisfaction with his existence to lead him into the arms of various women – Russian Anya, German Ilse, and American Ginnie – as he searches for something better than he has, only to realize in the twilight of his life what he always had – the love of his wife – was more than enough to sustain him.
Broadway History: In 1950, the tradition of the gypsy robe was born on Broadway, when a chorus member in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes sent the worn-out robe of a fellow chorus member to a friend in a different production. Since then, the robe has been passed to the chorus member with the most credits on the opening night of Broadway plays, with each former “gypsy” adding a prop from his or her performance.
Sponsored By
www.whatissuitetabu.com