From Broadway To 52nd Street
On The Town opened at the Adelphi Theatre on December 28, 1944 and ran for 463 performances. Leonard Bernstein composed the music and Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the lyrics. The musical starred Betty Comden, Nancy Walker, Adolph Green, John Battles, S. Ono Osata and Chris Alexander.
The Story: Three sailors – romantic Gaby, down-to-earth Chip and clownish Ozzie are on shore leave in New York City. During a subway ride, Gaby falls in love with a picture of Miss Turnstiles. This event leads the guys on an adventure to find her. Roaming around the city as far as the museum of Natural History and Coney Island, the other two also find love. Nancy Walker plays the cab driver. From this play New York, New York and Some Other Time became jazz standards.
Jazz History: American involvement in World War II, which began on December 11th, 1941 marked a decline in the importance of big bands in popular music. Many musicians were sent to fight in the war, and those who remained were restricted by high taxes on gasoline. By the time the ban on recording was lifted, big bands had practically been forgotten, or had begun to be thought of as peripheral in relation to vocal stars such as Frank Sinatra.
The fall of the Big Band began on August 1, 1942 when the American Federation of Musicians initiated a strike against all major recording companies because of a disagreement over royalty payments. No union musician could record. The effects of the strike include the shrouding of the developments of bebop in mystery. There are few documents that can provide evidence of what the early forms of the music sounded like.
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