From Broadway To 52nd Street
The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 premiered on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on January 30, 1936 and closed on May 9, 1936 after 115 performances due to Fanny Brice’s illness. The musical had a return engagement on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 14, 1936, and closed on December 19, 1936 after 112 performances. Brice reprised her role, with the additional cast that included Gypsy Rose Lee.
The musical was produced by Billie Burke Ziegfeld, Lee Shubert and J. J. Shubert; directed by John Murray Anderson and Edward Clarke Lilley; choreographed by Robert Alton; sketches directed by Edward D. Dowling; ballets directed by George Balanchine and scenic design and costumes were by Vincente Minnelli.
Vernon Duke composed the music with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and a cast starring Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, Eve Arden, Josephine Baker and the Nicholas Brothers.
The Story: In the opening number Brice mocks her famous song (“My Man”) in “He Hasn’t a Thing Except Me”, standing against a lamp-post. In “The Sweepstakes Taker” Brice portrays a Jewish Bronx housewife who wins the Irish sweepstakes. In “Fancy Free’ she becomes the affected and bored British “Zuleika” as she exchanges witty remarks with her husband Sir Robert, and, leaving behind elegance, burps in his face and utters a trade-mark “Denk you.” As Baby Snooks, Brice stars with popular stars of the day such as Clark Gable. The only song to become popular from the musical was “I Can’t Get Started” sung by Bob Hope to Eve Arden.
Broadway History: The musical was not all that was spawned from within the hallowed walls of the Broadway theatre. A new age of American playwright with the emergence of Eugene O’Neill, whose successful plays such as Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie and The Hairy Ape proved that there was an audience for serious drama on Broadway, thus ushering major dramatists like Elmer Rice, Maxwell Anderson, Robert E. Sherwood, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. Comedy and classical revivals became the norm on Broadway and opened the doors for dramas addressing the rise of Nazism and America’s non-intervention in the approaching world war. The most successful was Lillian Hellman’s “Watch on the Rhine” that would open in April 1941.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Edward Davis was born on March 2, 1922 in New York City. He was known to his friends, peers, jazz enthusiasts and aficionados by his nickname “Lockjaw” and became one of the pre-eminent jazz saxophonists of the 20th century.
In the early to mid-forties he played with Cootie Williams, Lucky Millinder, Andy Kirk, Louis Armstrong and Cont Basie. By 1946 he was leading his own band “Eddie Davis and His Beboppers” that housed Fats Navarro, Al Haig, Huey Long, Gene Ramey and Denzil Best.
In the 50’s he teamed with Sonny Stitt, from 1960 to ’62 he co-led a quintet with Johnny Griffin, and he and Griffin performed as part of the Kenny Clarke-Franz Boland Big Band. Davis recorded with Ella Fitzgerald, collaborated with Shirley Scott and played off and on with Count Basie’s Orchestra in the early 70’s.
In his later years he played with Harry “Sweets” Edison and remained busy as a soloist until his death on November 3, 1986 at the age of 64. Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis performed within the jazz genres swing, bop, hard bop, Latin and soul jazz.
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Glenn Miller was born Alton Glenn Miller on March 1, 1904 on a farm in Clarinda, Iowa. Though his early musical schooling was in Nebraska by 1915 his education continued in Missouri. Working to save money by milking cows, he bought his first trombone and played in the town orchestra. By high school his interest turned towards a new style of music called “dance band” and led a band with classmates. His unsuccessful foray into college caused him to concentrate on becoming a professional musician.
The mid-twenties saw Glenn touring with several bands including Red Nichols in Broadway show pits performing with band mates were Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa. In 1929 he was part of the band backing a recording of “If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight” featuring Pee Wee Russell, Eddie Condon, Gene Krupa and Coleman Hawkins.
He went on to work with the Dorsey brothers and British bandleader Ray Noble, then transitioning into motion pictures for Paramount and 20th Century with such stars as Bing Crosby, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Ethel Merman, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers.
From 1938 to 1942 Miller amassed great fame with his songs “Tuxedo Junction”, “Moonlight Serenade”, “Little Brown Jug” and “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” breaking all sales and chart records. In 1942 Glenn joined the war effort joining first the Army and then the Army Air Force forming marching bands and orchestras and performing for soldiers. Sadly, on a flight from England to Paris on December 15, 1944, Glenn Miller’s plane went missing over the English Channel. His body was never recovered.
The jazz musician, arranger, composer and swing era bandleader was posthumously issued a postage stamp, three songs are in the Grammy Hall of Fame and in 2003 he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
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He was born William Correa on February 28, 1934 in East Harlem, New York City but to the jazz and Latin music worlds he was simply known as Willie Bobo, a moniker given him by Mary Lou Williams after they recorded in the early 50’s. Growing up in Spanish Harlem in New York City, he began playing bongos at age 14 and started performing a year later with Perez Prado. Over the next few years he studied with Mongo Santamaria while serving as his translator and at 19 joined Tito Puente for four years.
Willie became one of the great Latin percussionists of his time, a relentless swinger on the congas and timbales, a flamboyant showman onstage, and an engaging if modestly endowed singer. He also made serious inroads into the pop, R&B and straight jazz worlds, and he always said that his favorite song was Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Dindi.”
He worked with Cal Tjader, Herbie Mann and Santamaria with whom he recorded the evergreen Latin standard “Afro-Blue” but it was in 1963 that he made his first recording as a leader with Clark Terry and Joe Farrell. He went on to record with Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, Wes Montgomery, Chico Hamilton and Sonny Stitt. In 1969, he moved to Los Angeles where he led jazz and Latin jazz combos, appeared on Bill Cosby’s first comedy series in 1969.
He recorded on his own for Sussex, Blue Note, Verve and Columbia. One of his last appearances, only three months before his death, was at the 1983 Playboy Jazz Festival where he reunited with Santamaria for the first time in 15 years. Jazz percussionist and timbale master Willie Bobo, known for his Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz succumbed to cancer on September 15, 1983 at age 49.
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Mildred Bailey was born Mildred Rinker on February 27, 1907 in Tekoa, Washington. She began performing at an early age, playing piano and singing in movie theatres by 1920. Moving to Seattle to bolster her career, she retained the name of her first husband Ted Bailey, but it was her second husband Benny Stafford that helped establish her on the West Coast.
By 1925 she was headlining a Hollywood club performing pop, early jazz and vaudeville standards. Due to her success Mildred was able to secure work for her brother Al Riker and his partner Bing Crosby, who in turn, introduced Mildred to Paul Whiteman via singing at a party so he could “discover” her. Whiteman had a very successful radio show and big band and Mildred became the first woman to join a band as a full time singer.
An early jazz singer with a sweet voice that belied her plump figure, Mildred Bailey influences were Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith and Connie Boswell. She balanced popular success with a hot jazz slanted career as the better half of her third husband Red Norvo, who together were known and Mr. and Mrs. Swing.
Bailey’s debut recording was with Eddie Lang in 1929 and by ’32 her fame exploded with her signature hit “Rockin’ Chair” written especially for her by Hoagy Carmichael. Throughout the 30’s and into the 40’s she continued to record with the Whiteman orchestra, her husband Red, and recording arrangements written by Eddie Sauter that proved perfect for her voice.
She appeared on Benny Goodman’s Camel Caravan radio program, and gained her own series again during the mid-’40s. Hampered by health problems by the end of the decade suffering from diabetes and Mildred Bailey died of a heart attack on December 12, 1951 in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Jazz and blues vocalist Mildred Bailey, a major jazz vocalist and innovator who influenced Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Rosemary Clooney was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1989.
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