Manhattan on Random

Woody Allen's Manhattan...released in 1979, back when everybody liked him. Simply MUST use those opening lines of this film, but truth to tell, Annie Hall remains my favorite Woody flick.

Faith Prince does an interesting medley of "Take Me Back To Manhattan" and "Before The Parade Passes By" on her Live At The Colony album, the Colony being the Palm Springs type! (Not the one where everybody wears 3-cornered hats.)

Evan Pappas and Tim Curry in My Favorite Year, on Broadway in 1992 (done ten years after the movie). We'll hear Tim's "Manhattan", written by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens. The show lasted for only 36 performances, but I do like many of the songs...well, maybe not this one so much, but MOST! :)

 

The marvelous Mabel Mercer will be warbling a Manhattan song, too. "Carry Me Back To Old Manhattan", which is a new tune for me! Love the lyrics...now who wrote it? I'm stumped! And look at that album cover: Accompanied by Cy Coleman and his Band. Cover art was by Burt Goldblatt.

Libby York does a great rendition of "Take Me Back" on her Memoir album, released in 2014. Libby was reviewed pretty recently in the NYTimes as “A jazz singer of cool composure and artful subtlety". She reminds me a bit of Diana Krall, but maybe with a warmer tone? Anyway, love this take. 

 

Gotta include Blossom Dearie in this Manhattan corner, for sure. From her album of 1959, Once Upon A Summertime. And love the pic below, which informs us all that she had an effing sense of humor.

And from the 2007 Encores! staged concert version of  Face The Music, we'll hear "Manhattan Madness" as sung by Jeffry Denman (above with Meredith Patterson). Below, the same two along with Walter Bobbie. It also starred Lee Wilkof (yup, Seymore from that shop of horrors?) and Judy Kaye.  Irving Berlin wrote the tunes for this musical, originally done in 1932, with plenty to distract its audience from the drama of the Depression. Maybe we need this now! 

Playlist For Sunday, October 4, 2020: And Salmagundi To You, Too!

I should have called this the Hodge Podge playlist. No, wait! The Salmagundi Playlist. There, that's perfect. Have you HAD a salmagundi? I basically have one almost every night, but I never knew til now. I just tend to put everything in my fridge IN A SALAD. Like a kitchen sink melange, or flocculation, shall we say of greens and leftovers and nuts and berries and some sort of meat  (if you're a meaty sort of person). I googled it, so it's true. Here's a pic of one, but certainly not the only one. Imagine the permutations!

So I had no idea I was eating a fancy-named dish until now. How effing classy. 

Like this playlist. Well, maybe not too classy, but definitely a kitchen sink, patch-work, mish-mash of "Broadway and Beyond." We'll muddle thru Manhattan, the Lower East, the Uppa West...jostle thru Jersy, St. Loueee, and then land in...Colors? See what I mean? Must be the heat. ("You're crazy with the heat!" What's that from?) Or the cold. Or whatever we've had here in Rochester for the last 15 minutes, which is all and every. I just threw it in the Vitamix, pulsed, and voila, a New Edition. :)

 

                                     I want one...with all the attachments.

Tho I will never add kale.

 (BTW, I loathe and despise the "new, improved" Blogspot.com. If you're wondering what's going on with the captions, or the spacing, you now know why! )

So look forward to scratching your head about how this Sunday's musical amalgamation came to be. Ain't no rhyme nor reason. Just fun stuff sandwiched together...man, there are A LOT of food references in this thing. I must be hungry, or HANGRY, the new, improved way to excuse grumpy starving. 

Bring your own salad bowl on Sunday! (Dressing will be "on the side.")

 

Carry Me Back To Old Manhattan (Mabel Mercer)

Take Me Back to Manhattan (Libby York)

Take Me Back To Manhattan/Before The Parade Passes By (Faith Prince, Total Faith)

Manhattan Madness (Jeffry Denman, Face The Music)

Manhattan (Blossom Dearie, Once Upon A Summertime)

Manhattan (Tim Curry, My Favorite Year)

Sleep Peaceful, Mr. Used To Be (Helen Goldsby, St. Louis Woman)

Legalize My Name (Yvette Cason, St. Louis Woman)

Come Rain Or Come Shine (Vanessa Williams, Stanley Wayne Mathis, St. Louis Woman)

A Stud And A Babe (Jennifer Simard, Robert Roznowski, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change)

Always A Bridesmaid (Melissa Weil, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change)

I Can Live With That (Melissa Weil, Danny Burstein, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change)

Big Girls Don't Cry (John Lloyd Young, Ensemble, Jersey Boys)

Rag Doll (John Lloyd Young, Ensemble, Jersey Boys)

Dawn (John Lloyd Young, Ensemble, Jersey Boys)

Shakin' The Blues Away (Doris Day, Love Me Or Leave Me)

Be Like The Bluebird (Mickey Deems, Anything Goes)

Hello Bluebird (Judy Garland, I Could Go On Singing)

I'd Rather Be Blue (Fanny Brice, My Man)

Blues In The Night (Ann Hampton Callaway, Blues In The Night)

Your Eyes Are Blue (Craig Lucas, Suzanne Henry, Marry Me A Little)

A New Town Is A Blue Town (Harry Connick, Jr., The Pajama Game) 

Think Pink! (Kay Thompson, Funny Face)

Top Hat, White Tie, And Tails (Fred Astaire, Top Hat)

Somewhere That's Green (Kerry Butler, Little Shop Of Horrors)

The Color Purple (LaChanze, The Color Purple)

Bye Bye Blackbird (Liza Minnelli, Liza With A Z)

Lady In The Long Black Dress (Nicolas Colicos, Thomas Goodridge, Sister Act)

Black And Blue (Company, Ain't Misbehavin')

Blackout (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Company, In The Heights)

B&H on Random!

Tom Bosley, above, as Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Howard Da Silva, below, as Republican party boss, Ben Marino, in Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's first Broadway smash...Fiorello! George Abbott directed, Peter Gennaro choreographed...and it scooped a Pulitzer Prize For Drama (there are only 10 musicals that have managed that triumph).

That's the real Mayor LaGuardia, and for those who don't know BOO about him, he was the Mayor of New York City for 3 terms of office (1934-1945). He stood only 5 ft. 2in. tall and "Little Flower" (that's what Fiorello means, btw) was his nickname (probably not said to his face).

Tom Bosley with 2 of his co-stars, Pat Stanley and Ellen Hanley. The show received a total of 3 Tonys: 1 for Tom, 1 for Director George, and it scooped the Best Musical Tony, as well. (It actually tied for that award...with The Sound Of Music!)

She Loves Me launched in 1963, Bock and Harnick's 5th musical collaboration, starring Barbara Cook (above), Jack Cassidy (below), Daniel Massey, Barbara Baxley, Ludwig Donath, Nathaniel Frey, and Ralph Williams. It was small in scale, with no big, over the top dance/company numbers, but it WAS romantic! Jack Cassidy received the only Tony award.

Barbara Cook, Director Hal Prince, Barbara Baxley, and Daniel Massey celebrating on opening night! 

Carol Haney (that Bob Fosse protege) choreographed.

And a couple of pics from that fantastic 2016 revival with Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi as the two leads.

Zachary and Laura with Michael McGrath and Nicholas Barasch. Must have been a very dramatic scene!

A year after Fiorello!, the team embarked on Tenderloin, which was about the gentrification of New York's red light district of 1890...where was this? The whole town must have been red at some point! Unfortunately, it didn't make quite the splash that Fiorello (or later, Fiddler) did. It opened in the fall of 1960, ran for 216 performances, and starred English actor, Maurice Evans (below),better known for his Shakespearean accomplishments. And WE might know him as Dr. Zaius in The Planet Of The Apes ANNNNNND Samantha's dad in Bewitched??? That's Maurice below!

 

 

 

 

The show also starred Ron Husmann who got to sing the one song that left the show unscathed: "Artificial Flowers".

Jerry and Sheldon collaborated on 8 Broadway musicals. The last one, the one that actually caused their "divorce", was The Rothschilds, when they disagreed on the choice of the show's director. They seem rather reconciled below!

Jerry passed away in 2010, at the age of 81, but Sheldon lives on, having reached the age of 96 this past April.

Playlist For Sunday, September 27, 2020: I'll take a Rothschild, with everything!

If I Were A Rothschild? Yup, that's one Yiddish translation for "If I Were A Rich Man". Perfect! Especially when you spiral into the Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick cannon of musicals, and see that they ALSO WROTE...wait for it... The Rothschilds. Of course, Fiddler On The Roof fared far better on Broadway (a long run, revivals up the yang, awards, a movie, yadayadayada), but both shows were about beleaguered Jewish folk who rose (financially or spiritually or both or neither) and got on with life (or in Tevye's case "To Life!").

Zero Mostel...Tevye, The Original

                   Tevye 2? Topol, who performed in the movie and on stage.

 

 

Even Leonard Nimoy played him...

 

 

Harvey Fierstein, Danny Burstein, and Alfred Molina

took Broadway turns.

Steven Skybell, the "Yiddish Tevye" in the newest production.

Jerry and Sheldon are, if you haven't caught on yet, our focus this Sunday, or as I like to call them B&H (like the bagel "kings"...I can actually smell bagels when I type that!). They seemed to be the kings of komposition in the 1960s, with She Loves Me, Fiorello!, Fiddler, The Apple Tree, and Tenderloin. One from Chicago kid, the other a Flushing lad, who joined forces to write The Body Beautiful, their first musical collaboration back in 1958. It tanked big time, but dontcha know that "bagel" would lead to ANOTHER attempt, and a Pulitzer Prize, and "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

 

 So along with Fiorello!, and all of the above (and more, cuz More is More on Broadway), we'll sample the pretty-new production of Fiddler performed in Yiddish. It did damn well, running first at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, then moving uptown to 42nd St. for another year. Yes, they offered "captions", but don't we all (well, MOST of us, anyway) know the lyrics by heart? We definitely know when to laugh during these song. When to cry. And when to get up and dance with a chair held over our heads, right? Shouldn't be a problem, come Sunday.

 

Traditsye (Steven Skybell, Company, Fiddler On The Roof)

Sounds While Selling (Zachary Levi, Michael McGrath, Gavin Kreel, 

       She Loves Me)

Days Gone By (Ludwig Donath, Daniel Massey, She Loves Me)

Will He Like Me? (Laura Benanti, She Loves Me)

Ilona (Jack Cassidy, Ensemble, She Loves Me)

Little Old New York (Eileen Rodgers, Lee Becker, Company, Tenderloin)

Artificial Flowers (Ron Husmann, Tenderloin)

Reform (Lee Becker, Nancy Emes, Carvel Carter, Tenderloin)

The Picture Of Happiness (Ron Husmann, Tenderloin)

Garbage (Sheldon Harnick, Shoestring Revue)

Boston Beguine (Alice Ghostly, Shoestring Revue)

Cold Clear World (Fritz Weaver, Baker Street)

The Very Last Dance Hall In L.A. (Laura Pursell)

Our Winter Love (Bill Pursell)

Rothschild And Sons (Hal Linden, Ensemble, The Rothschilds)

Everything (Leila Martin, Hal Linden, The Rothschilds)

In My Own Lifetime (Hal Linden, The Rothschilds)

The Name's La Guardia (Tom Bosley, Fiorello!)

Politics And Poker (Howard DaSilva, Ensemble, Fiorello!)

Gentleman Jimmy (Eileen Rodgers, Fiorello!)

Little Tin Box (Howard DaSilva, Ensemble, Fiorello!)

Ah, But Underneath (Diana Rigg, Follies)

Could I Leave You? (Diana Rigg, Follies)

Who's That Woman? (Mary McCarty, Ensemble, Follies)

Here In Eden (Barbara Harris, The Apple Tree)

The Apple Tree (Forbidden Fruit)(Larry Blyden, The Apple Tree)

It's A Fish(Alan Alda, The Apple Tree)

Forbidden Love (In Gaul)(Alan Alda, Barbara Harris, The Apple Tree)

Ven Ikh Bin A Rotshild (Steven Skybell, Fiddler On The Roof)

What A Life (Richard Kind, Fiddler On The Roof)

Lekhayim! (Steven Skybell, Company, Fiddler On The Roof)

A Plethora Of Porter

Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman

in the film version of Anything Goes, 1936.

Ethel was reprising her stage role,

done 2 years earlier.

Were those Bing's REAL mutton chops?

 Ethel must have tried tugging them!

 The 1962 Off-Broadway revival

of Anything...

with Kenneth Mars, Hal Linden, and Eileen Rodgers (below).

This revival drew songs from MANY different 

Porter musicals.

I'm sort of surprised it wasn't moved to Broadway;

the recording is great!

 Eileen, Hal, and MIckey Deems at the cast recording.

 Other Renos of note:

Above, Patti LuPone in the 1987 revival,

and below, Sutton Foster, in 2011.

 Note the "hands on hips" poses...

for almost all the Renos!

 Gwen Verdon (in her Broadway debut)

stole Can-Can, 1953, out from under Lilo

(the supposed star!)...

Mixed reviews (okay, some really SCATHING ones as well)

 but it ran for 2 years,

and was made into a (not very successful) film

in 1960,

which used only a few of Cole's songs.

 Ethel Merman and Paula Laurence

in Something For The Boys...

Betty Garrett was Ethel's understudy,

and we'll hear Betty and Paula's take on

the Un-PC "By The Mississinewa".

 Broadway's Silk Stockings

with Don Ameche and Hildegard Knef.

And below, from the movie version:

Jules Munshin, Joseph Buloff, and Peter Lorre

"dancing" in Siberia!

 Janis Paige and Fred Astaire,

again from Silk Stockings, the film.

On Sunday we'll hear Janis and

"Satin And Silk".

 Mexican Hayride, 1944,

with June Havoc as a famous bullfighter!

That's June, below...

Gypsy Rose Lee's sister.

A movie of Hayride came out in 1948,

starring Abbott and Costello?

 1948's Kiss Me Kate

with Patricia Morrison and Alfred Drake (sans goatee?).

It received the first Best Musical Tony Award to be given out.

Over 3 dozen Broadway shows and movie musicals

to his name.

Magic is right!