Playlist for Sunday, March 4, 2017: There Isn't One!

A Sunday off! Yes, that's right...2 On The Aisle is outta here for one whole week, so what you'll hear at 3pm on March 4th is a pre-recorded surprise! I actually have no idea which 2 On The Aisle Of Old will air, probs something from 2016. But I will be back with bells on come March 10th with a live show.

So help me out with a request! Email me at kim@jazz901.org OR leave a comment here. Always glad to hear from you, and (of course) always "saving you a seat".  :)

Soloists: Some Young, Some Married, ALL Old Fashioned

 This Sunday,

Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton will want an 

"Old Fashioned Wedding"

thanks to Irving Berlin and open carry.

Even the "cowboys" dressed better back then.

 Gotta have some Shirley (age 10)

and "An Old Straw Hat"

from Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm,

which also starred Bill Robinson, tap dance genius,

and Randolph Scott 

(Randolph SCOTT?!).

It was the first film Shirley did without her

requisite 56 curls.

 New Faces of 1952:

The poster (top),

 the Hirshfeld (left to right: Paul Lynde, Ronny Graham, 

Alice Ghostley, Robert Clary, Eartha Kitt, 

June Carrol, and Virginia de Luce)...

and the song we'll hear this Sunday,

"Boston Beguine" below

with Alice Ghostley.

 Lotte Lenya and Jack Gilford

in the recording studio

for the original cast recording of Cabaret.

We'll hear "Married".

 Above Cyril Ritchard (a most suave Hook)

and Mary Martin...

and below (just as suave, if not more)

Fred Astaire in You Were Never Lovelier.

Sunday Salad....Munchy, Crunchy, and Smothered with Something...Anything!!

 First time on 2 On The Aisle,

Falsettos,

a "married" version of 2 earlier versions from

the late 80s/early  90s,

March Of The Falsettos and Falsetto Land.

Above, Jewish boys play baseball!

 The 2016 revival starred Christian Borle,

standing at the head of the bed above

(prior to this role, he starred as Shakespeare, in

Something Rotten!, at center below)...and

Andrew Rannells (of The Book Of Mormon)

starred as Whizzer, in the bed above.

 "It's Hard To Be The Bard"

a Queen parody,

and below, Brian d'Arcy James and

most of the company in the finale of Something Rotten!:

"Make An Omelet"

(note omelets).

 From Chicago (the movie version)

we'll hear "Cell Block Tango",

with Catherine Zeta-Jones (below).

Above, same number with the London Company a'stage.

 And then the 2011 revival of 

Anything Goes,

with Sutton Foster above center,

and below with Moon Face Martin

(aka Joel Grey), in "Friendship".

 We'll also hear

"Buddy, Beware" with Jennifer Stone

(at the curtain call with Colin Donnell and Sutton)

and "The Gypsy In Me"

with Adam Godley.

(I know how he feels!)

Playlist For Sunday, February 26, 2017: Back, General Tso! Back, I Say!

For the next 1.5 weeks, I am going be to Busy. Catch the capital usage, buster. And that means I am tossing this Broadway salad with bold strokes, aggressive dressing, and nothing MINCED. Don't like garlic? Too bad. Garlic likes you, so suck it up and deal. Musicals should be gnawed, not caressed, so here's a Wild Bunch that want and deserve the munching.

Gee, I wish I could talk like that all the time. Sorry. I don't know what got into me. One minute I'm Shirley Temple in her "Old Straw Hat", the next my inner "He Had It Comin'" self is bitching, beware-ing and tango-ing on somebody's heart. Must be the gypsy in me. Too damn saucy for my own good.

Two sides of the Broadway coin (and the inside of my head) then; Bittersweet Lotte, Goofy Brian, Melvyn Douglas and Shirley Booth (whatta couple!) "at each other", Four Jews In A Room Bitching, plus tangos, mambos, beguines, castanets (and whips and chains, but there I go AGAIN!). Truth to tell, A LOT of my favorites. The sweet and the piquant.

Why do I want Chinese?


A Musical (Brian d'Arcy James, Brad Oscar, Something Rotten!)
Anything Goes (Sutton Foster, Anything Goes)
Buddie, Beware (Jessica Stone, Anything Goes)
Friendship (Joel Grey, Sutton Foster, Anything Goes)
Four Jews In A Room Bitching (Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells,
      Brandon Uranowitz, Anthony Rosenthal, Falsettos)
Miracle Of Judaism (Anthony Rosenthal, Falsettos)
The Baseball Game (Ensemble, Falsettos)
What More Can I Say (Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells, Falsettos)
Cell Block Tango (Catherine Zeta Jones, The Cell Block Girls, Chicago)
Dance At The Gym (Instrumental, West Side Story)
Do We? (Gil Lamb, Lucie Lancaster, 70, Girls, 70)
Married (Lotte Lenya, Jack Gilford, Cabaret)
An Old-Fashioned Wedding (Ethel Merman, Ray Middleton, Annie Get Your
      Gun)
An Old Straw Hat (Shirley Temple, Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm)
I'm Old Fashioned (Fred Astaire, You Were Never Lovelier)
Old Sayin's (Melvyn Douglas, Shirley Booth, Juno)
I Can Live With That (Jordan Leeds, Melissa Weill, I Love You, You're Perfect,
      Now Change)
Barber's Song/Golden Helmet of Mambrino (Gino Conforti, Richard Kiley,
      Irving Jacobson, Man Of La Mancha)
What Do You Want Of Me? (Joan Diener, Man Of La Mancha)
Dulcinea/The Impossible Dream (Joan Diener, Richard Kiley,  Irving Jacobson,
      Man Of La Mancha)
The Gypsy In Me (Adam Godley, Anything Goes)
Carnival Tango (Instrumental, The Boy Friend)
Hook's Tango (Cyril Ritchard, Peter Pan)
Temptation (Instrumental, Singin' In The Rain)
Boston Beguine (Alice Ghostley, New Faces Of 1952)
Tango De Amor (Instrumental, The Addams Family)
The Masochism Tango (Tom Lehrer, The Remains Of Tom Lehrer)
Hard To Be The Bard (Christian Borle, Something Rotten!)
Something Rotten/Make An Omelette (Bryan d'Arcy James, Company,
      Something Rotten!)

Rose X 3, + Lina, - Daddy

 Since we're playing Gypsy 

(for the 100th time...but it's the MAMA of all musicals!),

we needed to salute Ethel and Sandra Church above,

and Patti Lupone, with Laura Benanti and Leigh Ann Larkin,

below in the 2008 revival.

Heads up: In the recording of Some People

(Ethel's original),

the voice that says "88 bucks? You ain't gettin' 88 cents from me, Rose!"

is that of Stephen Sondheim. 

 Can you imagine performing in front of a quintet like this?

Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, (the real, the actual)

 Gypsy Rose Lee,

Arthur Laurents (book writer, overall book writing genius)

and Jules Styne.

Ethel did, and she probably ordered them around.

 In 1973,

Angela Lansbury 

with Zan Charisse (yes, Cyd Charisse's niece) and Rex Robbins

took a turn as Rose,

to pretty sublime reviews.

 Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont

(Debbie Reynolds singing for her...yet in truth Debbie was dubbed!)

in Singin' in the Rain.

Jean's first successes were on radio shows

and Broadway (Swan Song, Another Part of the Forest, Ghosts),

but her film debut was in Adam's Rib, 1949,

with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn.

Below...with Judy Holliday and Tom Ewell. 

Jean's first starring role came a year later 

in Asphalt Jungle with Sterling Hayden.

 A 1952 flick with Jimmy Stewart,

Carbine Williams...

...and 3 seasons on the sitcom,

Make Room For Daddy.

Jean was nominated thrice for an Emmy for this show.

She left when she grew tired of the "same ole",

which incensed Danny Thomas so much,

he killed off the character!

Two seasons later (with ratings in the tank)

he "remarried"...Marjorie Lord.

Best known of course for her "tah tay tee toe too" performance

in Singin' In The Rain (an Academy Award nomination),

Jean died in 1977, at the age of 54,

from esophageal cancer.

Sunday Dames!

 Judy, Judy, Judy...all dressed up and no place to sing!

"They" cut Mr. Monotony from Easter Parade

due to the scandalous (no pants) costume.

A couple of years later, Irving Berlin (the song's perpetrator)

added it to Miss Liberty, but again it was given the heave ho.

Then he tried integrating it into Call Me Madam...

well, The Merm hated it.

So it's one of those songs that never found a home.

The outfit, however did: On Judy. In Summer Stock. Two Years Later.

 Eartha, no doubt relaxing at home.

For her solo, "Monotonous", in New Faces of 1952,

she requested 6 chaise longues.

She got 2.

Horrid treatment, simply horrid. 

 Julie in her My Fair Lady finest.

I was going to post a guttersnipe portrait

in honor of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?",

but this slays me. :)

Early Merm.

Pre Gypsy, pre Mad World, pre Airplane.

Gorgeous...and never took a lesson!

 Even though we'll hear only a wee bit of Jean this Sunday,

whatta presence! Whatta look!

We'll see more of Jean in the next blog,

but meanwhile here she is, shooting daggars at Gene

in Singin' In The Rain.

Playlist For Sunday, February, 19, 2017: And I'll Get A Gimmick, Too!

Some people probably don't feel this way....some people are happy with their knitting and their cats, playing bingo, paying rent. But every once in awhile, I feel like playing Andreas Vollenweider. Or Jay and The Americans. Morton Feldman. Guns and Roses. Ever feel that way? You know, wanting to bounce like a wonky tennis ball out of the court, crack the shell of your little cocoon, wish for other side of the planet-ness? Maybe it's spring fever (or more likely cabin fever) that's got me yearning for Different and New. Like... why not croissants and pate, instead of those Wegman's Oat-aramas tomorrow morning? Why not mules and mohair, instead of LLBean flannel (what WOULD the post mistress say...)? Why not Cisco instead of Piccard, Glenn instead of Patti, a boattail instead of a frickin' Ford Fiesta!... Jeez.

I would if I could. But...I won't. I'll tolerate the monotony a little longer, til that black ice out on the drive melts for real, and then I'll have to explode like those dandelions that I know are planning (even now) a cunning coup on my 0.8 acres. Yes (indeedy!), I will eat my morning banana with pride until that metaphorical kiwi ripens, put on my parka until the Blackglama comes back from the dry cleaner, and then...THEN... it will be lovely, there WILL be trumpets, I WON'T be tired, I'll say YES, and it will be my TURN!

(*Note illusions to playlist. I'm not entirely losing it.) !


Overture (Instrumental, Gypsy)
Wouldn't It Be Lovely? (Julie Andrews, Ensemble, My Fair Lady)
Would You? (Betty Noyes, Jean Hagen, Singin' In The Rain)
It Would Have Been Wonderful (Len Cariou, Laurence Guittard, A Little
      Night Music)
You Would If You Could (Robert Lindsay, Jane Summerhays, Me And My Girl)
I Cain't Say No (Gloria Graham, Oklahoma!)
She Didn't Say Yes (Jeanne Lehman, The Cat And The Fiddle)
Yes Indeedy (Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Take Me Out To The Ball Game)
Yes, We Have No Bananas (The Company, Bullets Over Broadway)
Mr. Monotony (Judy Garland, Easter Parade)
Monotonous (Eartha Kitt, New Faces Of 1952)
I'm Tired (Madeline Kahn, Blazing Saddles)
Single Man Drought (Jennifer Simard, Melissa Weill, I Love You, You're
      Perfect, Now Change)
Shouldn't I Be Less In Love With You? (Robert Roznowski, I Love You, You're
      Perfect, Now Change)
A Stud And A Babe (Robert Roznowski, Jennifer Simard, I Love You, You're
      Perfect, Now Change)
Seasons Of Love (Ensemble, Rent)
The Mirror-Blue Light (Jonathan Groff, Ensemble, Spring Awakening)
Burn (Phillipa Soo, Hamilton)
I Won't Grow Up (Mary Martin, Ensemble, Peter Pan)
Won't You Charleston With Me? (Bob Scheerer, Ann Wakefield, The Boy
      Friend)
There Won't Be Trumpets (Bernadette Peters)
I Won't Send Roses (Robert Preston, Mack & Mabel)
I Won't Say (I'm In Love)(Susan Egan, Hercules)
You Won't Succeed On Broadway (David Hyde-Pierce, Tim Curry, Spamalot)
Some People (Ethel Merman, Gypsy)
Small World/Mama's Talkin' Soft (Patti Lupone, Boyd Gaines, Laura Benanti,
      Leigh Ann Larkin, Gypsy)
You Gotta Get A Gimmick (Maria Karnilova, Faith Dane, Chotzi Foley,
      Gypsy)
Rose's Turn (Ethel Merman, Gypsy)

You're not sick...you're just in love!

 The Merm and a glassified Donald O'Connor

in Call Me Madam, 1950...
but above is from the 1953 movie,
with Donald replacing Russell Nype.
The song "You're Just In Love" went in at the last minute,
when Dame Ethel said "we need to put something in there!"
Her "reflexes" were right;
"You're Just In Love" stopped the show every night.

 From Arms And The Girl, 1950
(same year as Call Me Madam),

we'll hear Pearl Bailey, who made her Broadway debut
in this show (albeit playing a slave).
Best part of all,

Pearl evidently stole the show with 2 numbers:
 "Nothin' Is Nothin'",
and "There Must Be Something Better Than Love."

Nanette Fabray and George Guetary starred,
but nobody noticed them.

Don Ameche (Mr. Alexander Graham Bell?)

and Elaine Stritch in the recording studio,

creating Goldilocks's cast album.

The show lasted 4 months back in 1955,

with a cast of 42...Margaret Hamilton and Nathaniel Frey

in supporting roles.

We'll hear 2 from this bagel 

(well, maybe we should call it a bagel WITH a schmear?)

"No Could Ever Love You"

and

"I Can't Be In Love".

Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby's

Horse Feathers contribution,

sung in turn by 3 of the 4 Marx Brothers

(unless Harpo plucked it out on the harp...

my mind is hazy on that point).

That's Groucho on the ukulele at the top,

with Thelma Todd and Duck.

Rudy Vallee as J.B. Bigley (ahhhh...maybe THAT'S where it came from!)

in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.

(Note club covers...Kukla, Fran and Ollie, minus Fran?) 

And below, his "Valentine", Hedy La Rue, played by 

Virginia Martin.

We'll hear "Love From A Heart Of Gold."

Note crazy scenery...a water fountain drawn on?

"Freddy My Love"

from Grease, though I'm not exactly sure if the above photo

is from the original production...

if so, we're looking at 

Katie Hanley soloing,

and Marya Small, Garn Stephens and Adrienne Barbeau(?)

as back up singers. 

You tell me. :)

John Schimmel, Cass Morgan, Jim Wann,

Debra Monk, John Foley, and Mark Hardwick:
the original Pump Boys and Dinettes.

We'll hear Cass's rendition of "Be Good Or Be Gone",

written by Jim Wann.

(Cass Morgan trivia:  Rochester, NY native,

also subsequently performed in Bridges of Madison County,

Memphis, Beauty and the Beast, Annie,

Cabaret...still active in theatre!)

Spotlight: She Loves Me

 One of my personal "Top 5" movies ever:

The Shop Around The Corner, done in 1940,

based on Parfumerie, a play by Miklos Laszlo.

James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan starred,

Frank Morgan played the shop's owner,

Mr. Matuschek,
and it was set in Budapest...circa 1935.
 

Jimmy played Alfred Kralik to Margaret's Klara Novak.

Below, more of Matuschek's staff:

William Tracey, James, Joseph Schildkraut,

and Sara Haden.

Missing: Inez Courtney (who played Ilona)

 The musical version hit Broadway in 1963,

thanks to Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick.

Below, Barbara Cook as the heroine (newly christened as Amalia Balash)

and Daniel Massey, now George (not Alfred) Nowak!

 The shop is now Maraczek's!

Try to keep up.

Jack Cassidy got himself a Tony Award

for playing Steven Kodaly...

perfect casting!

His was the only win for this production.

Revivals abounded, with productions done

in the West End, Broadway, and "in concert":

there was even a movie version considered 

with Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews

(Maurice Chevalier as Mr. Maraczek?),

but it never happened.

Above and below, the most recent (2016) Broadway edition,

with Zachary Levi, Laura Benanti, Gavin Creel,

and Nicholas Barasch.

Below, Laura and Zachary...before "Ice Cream!"