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…
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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Harlem was originally a wealthy white suburb of the New York City borough of Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century, but over-speculation led to a collapse of the housing boom and by 1904, fed by the Great Migration, thousands of Blacks began to reside in Harlem, taking advantage of inexpensive rents. By the 1920’s it became the major residential, cultural and business center for Black people. It was also the center of a flourishing entertainment business with black theaters and black artist performing for black audiences.
Originally a Dutch village formally organized in 1658 and named Haarlem after a Dutch town in the Netherlands and has been defined by a series of boom-or-bust cycles. Harlem was in vogue during the Roaring Twenties and the Harlem Renaissance and white socialites flocked north to hear Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. The premiere dance hall was the Savoy Ballroom with the big four clubs were The Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn, Small’s Paradise and Barron Wilkins, which was the first to open in 1915.
The Cotton Club, opened by gangster Owney Madden in 1922 moved downtown in ’36; Connie’s Inn opened in 1923 by George and Connie Immerman and Ed Smalls opened Small’s Paradise in 1925 and endured until 1986. All four catered to white audiences with lavishly staged shows featuring black performers such as James P. Johnson, Bill “ Bojangles” Robinson and Ethel Waters.
Swing and jazz were at its height and over the next several decades attracted the nightlife of both wealthy and working patrons to witness the greatest black musicians and performers in music and entertainment at a proliferation of theatres and clubs.
The most popular nightspots within the boundaries of the Hudson and East Rivers and from 100th to 155th Streets were the Alhambra Theatre, the Apollo Theatre, Bamboo Inn, Bamville Club, Band Box, Barron’s, Brittwood, Capitol Palace, Club Basha, Count Basie’s, Dickie Wells Shim Sham Club, Garden Of Joy, Golden Gate Ballroom, Harlem Club, Harlem Opera House, Heat Wave, Lafayette Theatre, Lenox Club, Leroy’s, Lido Ballroom, Lincoln Theatre, Luckey’s Rendezvous, Minton’s Playhouse, Monette’s Supper Club, Monroe’s Uptown House, Nest Club, Pod’s & Jerry’s, Renaissance Ballroom, Rendezvous Cabaret, Rhythm Club, Saratoga Club, Ubangi Club and Yeah Man.
Harlem, which has recently been given the name Manhattan North, has former President Bill Clinton to have a visible presence, has skyrocketed rental costs and townhouse sales , given much of 125th Street a makeover, attracting thousands of tourists and an influx of residents who at one time not too long ago would never have crossed Central Park North or come down into the valley from Columbia University.
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Jeanne Lee was born on January 29, 1939 in New York City. Attending Bard College for dance, she began singing while still a student, formed a duo with classmate Ran Blake and recorded her first album, The Newest Sound Around. Jeanne was to become one of the foremost exponents of free vocal jazz extending her style to include moods that were sensual, somber, and sensitive while expressing standard lyrics as well as scatting.
During the 60’s and 70’s she recorded her distinctively independent and creative style either as a lead artist or a sidewoman for major performers of the jazz avant-garde, Archie Shepp, Anthony Brown, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Enrico Rava, Carla Bley, Cecil Taylor and Mal Waldron to name a few, on independent labels in America and Europe. In 1967, she toured and recorded with her husband and vibraphonist Gunter Hampel.
In 1976 she sang in the spiritual tradition in John Cage’s “Apartment House 1776”, composed for the U.S. Bicentennial. By the 80’s Jeanne was concentrating on composing and performing/recording her original works that often included poetic and dance components.
Jeanne Lee combines acrobatic vocal maneuvers with a deeply moving sound and quality that allows her to alternate between soaring, upper register flights and piercing, emotive interpretations. The extremely precise and flexible Jeanne Lee who easily moved from a song or solo’s top end to its middle and bottom accompanying an instrument, passed away due to complications from cancer on October 25, 2000 in Tijuana, Mexico.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Alice Babs was born Hildur Alice Nilsson on January 26, 1924 in Kalmar, Sweden. The singer and actress has worked in a wide number of genres including Swedish folklore, Elizabethan songs and opera however, she is best known internationally as a jazz singer.
Alice made her recording debut in 1939 at the age of 15, her yodeling making her initially popular but it was her acting breakthrough in “Swing It, Teacher!” in 1940 and subsequent hit song that brought her more acclaim for her appealing voice and lightly swinging style. She appeared in more than a dozen Swedish language films and despite playing the well- behaved, good-hearted and cheerful girl; the youth culture made Alice its icon causing outrage among members of the older generation. A vicar called the Alice Babs cult the “foot and mouth disease to cultural life”.
In 1958, she was the first artist to represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest finishing in 4th place. The same year, she formed “Swe-Danes”, touring the U.S. before dissolving in 1961. Fortune smiled and Alice began a long and productive collaboration with Duke Ellington in 1963, performing among other works his 2nd and 3rd Sacred Concerts. Because her voice had a range of more than three octaves, Duke Ellington said that when she did not sing the parts that he wrote for her, he had to use three different singers.
Ellington once remarked to the visitors of an Alice Babs recording session: “This voice, ladies and gentlemen, embodies all the warmth, joy of life, rhythm and tragedy that, for me, is the innermost secret of jazz”. She passed away from complications of Alzheimer’s disease on February 11, 2014 at age 90 in Stockholm, Sweden.
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