Adding Sunday Numbers!

 Imogene Coca

as Letitia Primrose, On The 20th Century.

 John Cullum, George Coe, and Dean Dittman

join her in "Five Zeros." 

Spoiler: It's a bum check!

 Chip Zien, Joanna Gleason, and Bernadette Peters

in Into The Woods.

"It Takes Two."

 

Micheal McKean, Megan Lawrence, Harry Connick Jr. and Kelli O'Hara

 in the 2006 revival of The Pajama Game,

modeling their Sleep-Tite pjs.

We'll hear Michael and "The Three Of Us."

 Tammy Grimes (right) on opening night of

42nd Street ("About A Quarter To Nine").

Left is Leroy Reems, who also starred in this show,

 and of course in the middle,

a congratulatory Lauren Bacall.

 

Aaron Tveit and Tom Wopat,

father and son in Catch Me If You Can...

"Fifty Checks."

You See Stars, I See Numbers!

 The Three B's!

June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven and Nancy Walker

boogie in Best Foot Forward, 1943,

starring Lucille Ball and Chill Wills.

It was based on the Broadway musical done in 1941,

Nancy's Broadway debut.

In 1963, Liza Minelli appeared in an Off-Broadway version,

with a tap-dancing Christopher Walken!

 Seven And A Half Cents,

from The Pajama Game.

(Our only fraction come this Sunday!)

Spoiler Alert: They get their raise. :)

 Richard Burton and Roddy McDowall...

can't say that Roddy as Mordred inspires much fear.

Seven Deadly Virtures...count 'em, only 7!

 Danny Kaye, and Barbara Bel Geddes

in The Five Pennies, 1959,

a semi (underline that)-biographical pic of

band leader Red Nichols.

 

Gwen Verdon and Stephen Douglass

recording the original cast album of Damn Yankees.

Note the Washington Senators uniforms!

"Two Lost Souls"

Numbers 1, 3, 5 and 10!

 Len Cariou and Lauren Bacall in Applause...

the "One Of A Kind" number.

This was Len's first Broadway musical and his first starring role.

Ms. Bacall had earlier performed on Broadway in Cactus Flower and 

Goodbye Charlie...but singing was a brand new experience.

(Best Musical of 1970, and a Best Actress Tony to LB!)

 "Three Little Maids From School,"

pictured above...from Topsy Turvy,

with Eleanor David, Shirley Henderson, and Dorothy Atkinson.

The Mikado is a long-standing G&S favorite from 1885...

 Five Guys Named Moe,

a juke-box musical featuring the songs of Louis Jordan (and friends).

Above, the "5" from the London production, done in 1990.

 Ruth Etting and "Ten Cents A Dance,"

one of her signature songs

from Simple Simon.

Ruth was "America's Sweetheart" in the 20s and 30s

doing stage, radio and films...

despite a life filled with gangsters, scandal, and shootings,

thanks to first husband, Moe "The Gimp" Snyder.

Playlist for Sunday, November 1, 2015: Don't Worry, I Stay In Base 10

So Member Supported Jazz 90.1 doesn't pay the bills, okay? I have to have a day job...and my life work, my mission as I see it, is...Math. Now I'm not an engineer or a professor or anything fancy-schmancy like that ('tho I could play a mean one of those on a sit-com). I'm a lowly tutor, which means I help children get in touch with their inner numerical Buddhas, as we say in the biz. Fractions, negatives, sine graphs, scatter plots...stuff like that. I celebrate Pi Day.  I celebrate a 92% for little Jamie (Way to go on that extra credit logic puzzle, Jamie!). So I am One with Numbers.

Why not, I ask MY inner Buddha, do a "Broadway By The Numbers" show? And I answered myself (because no one else heard the question), sure. So there you have it. The process, the method by which a playlist was constructed. Haphazard? Hardly!  Methodical? Maybe. But for certain, such a notion lands us heavily (and me without a good insurance plan...I mean, we're talking the Bronze level, baby) in County Strange Bedfellows. Lauren Bacall next to The Book Of Mormon.  Spike Jones with Into The Woods. Four Black Dragons juxtaposed with Five Guys Named Moe. Sunday, thy name is Eclectic. If there's time, I may even toss in a little Gilbert & Sullivan, just to twerk that Musical Theatre Gyroscope even farther left of center. And you say I don't know what I'm doing!

So dot to dot, starting with One and going to a Million...do the Broadway Math!  :)


Money, Money (Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Cabaret)
Johnny One-Note (Judy Blazer, Babes In Arms)
One Of A Kind (Len Cariou, Lauren Bacall, Applause)
One Boy (Susan Watson, Ensemble, Bye Bye Birdie)
Just One Of Those Things (Doris Day)
Two Ladies (Joel Grey, Ensemble, Cabaret)
Two Lost Souls (Gwen Verdon, Stephen Douglass, Damn Yankees)
It Takes Two (Joanna Gleason, Chip Zien, Into The Woods)
Two By Two (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, The Book Of Mormon)
Cocktails For Two (Spike Jones And His City Slickers)
Three Coins In The Fountain (Ensemble, Forever Plaid)
Three Little Maids from School (The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company,
        The Mikado)
Three Sunny Rooms (Judy Kuhn, Dick Latessa, Rags)
The Three Of Us (Michael McKean, The Pajama Game)
The Three B's (Nancy Walker, Gloria DeHaven, June Allyson, Best Foot
        Forward)
Four Black Dragons (Pacific Overtures)
Five Guys Named Moe (Jerry Dixon, Doug Eskew, Milton Craig Nealy,
        Keven Ramsey, Jeffrey D. Sams, Glenn Turner, Five Guys Named Moe)
Five Zeros (George Coe, Dean Dittman, Imogene Coca, On The Twentieth
        Century)
The Five Pennies (Danny Kaye, The Five Pennies)
Six Months Out Of Every Year (Shannon Bolin, Robert Shafer, Damn Yankees)
I Speak Six Languages (Deborah S. Craig,The 25th Annual Putnam County
        Spelling Bee)
The Seven Deadly Virtues (Roddy McDowell, Camelot)
Seven And A Half Cents (Janis Paige, Stanley Prager, Ensemble, The Pajama
        Game)
Tonight At Eight (Daniel Massey, She Loves Me)
About A Quarter To Nine (Tammy Grimes, 42nd Street)
Ten Cents A Dance (Ruth Etting, Simple Simon)
Sixteen Going On Seventeen (Brian Davies, Lauri Peters, The Sound of
        Music)
Fifty Checks (Tom Wopat, Catch Me If You Can)
Wait Til We're Sixty-Five (William Daniels, Barbara Harris, On A Clear Day
        You Can See Forever)
70, Girls, 70 (Mildred Natwick, Ensemble, 70, Girls, 70)
Seventy-Six Trombones (Robert Preston, Ensemble, The Music Man)
Another Hundred People (Pamela Myers, Company)
A Million Windows And I (Ann Hampton Calloway, Shoe String Revue)

We're in the $$$!

 Danced in 1980's 42nd Street by

Lee Roy Reams and company,

and sung by Karen Prunczik, Wanda Richert and Ginny King,

We're in the Money was a production number and a half,

danced in gold costumes, on gold "coins".

 The song actually debuted in Golddiggers of 1933,

where it was introduced by Ginger Rogers (below)

and with much BIGGER coins...

well, it WAS worth more back then.

Harry Dubin did the melody, and Al Dubin the words

and, of course, that signature Busby Berkeley choreography!

Besides Ginger,

it starred Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, and Joan Blondell.

Pre-code Warner Brothers...ooh, la la!

Hamilton. GOTTA BE Best Musical.

 First there was In The Heights,

Lin Manuel Miranda's first creation, begun back in 1999,

when he was a sophomore at Wesleyan.

Umpteen drafts later, it successfully opened on Broadway (2008).

He then set his sights on Hamilton.

(Above, Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom, Jr., Anthony Ramos,

 and Miranda.)

Inspired by Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander,

Miranda began writing a hip hop/rap/R&B score...

it debuted off-Broadway at the Public in January of 2015,

but by August, it was very much ON Broadway.

(Above Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Jasmine Cephas Jones)

 Phillipa as Eliza Hamilton, and Lin-Manuel as Alexander.

Critics were over the moon.

Hamilton was praised as "a watershed, a breakthrough, a game changer,"

yet Miranda is "too savvy to reinvent all the rules at once."

Ben Brantley went so far as to suggest we mortgage our

houses and lease our children to get tickets.

Woulda, Coulda...

 It Shoulda Been You

hit Broadway in April of 2015,

with David Hyde Pierce directing, 

and Tyne Daly, Chip Zien, Harriet Harris, and Edward Hibbert

goosing up what most critics agreed was sit-com material.

Hyde Pierce got full marks, however, for snappy direction.

 Lisa Howard (who we'll hear singing "I Never Wanted This")

played the bride's sister,

and Edward Hibbert 

(standing, center...he played the director in Curtains, btw)

as the wedding planner.

A nice twist at the end brought the whole show

into the 21st Century, but I ain't gonna spoil it for you. 

 

Josh Grisetti as the ex-boyfriend

was a show highlight, according to the powers that be.

Music, Barbara Anselmi, Lyrics and Book, Brian Hargrove.

Forget ordering tickets...it closed in August!

Playlist for Sunday, October 25, 2015: I'm Glad I'm Not Robert Mitchum!

 J'ever notice?
(No one ever says "DID YOU ever notice?")
The more you get into anything, the more you start seeing circles...how one thing is intertwined with another...and the deeper you go, the less you seem to know. This is both intriguing and scary.

Like this composer...Cyril J. Mockridge (the fact that he kept the J must mean something, right?) wrote the song "River Of No Return" for the movie of the same name...well, he actually wrote the music for Lost In Space, that old TV show with Bill Mumy and The Robot.  Man, I loved that show...with Angela Cartwright as his sister? Yup. As well as the score for I Was A Male War Bride, Desk Set, etc. etc. etc. Like literally a hundred scores! Man, Cyril. Otto Preminger directed River (yes, we're back to that again) and tried to get Marilyn Monroe's acting teacher thrown off the set (for countermanding his direction to MM), but MM threw a tantrum and the acting teacher stayed. What Robert Mitchum was drinking when this all went down, I have yet to unearth, but he MUSTA!

Maurice Chevalier, who is so French you want to sock him, actually (innocently?) suggested the song idea for "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" to Alan Jay Lerner, in the middle of Gigi production. He was relieved he wasn't on that French cabaret circuit anymore, I guess, where croissants were stale, the hours quelle horror, and the wine whiney. Well, thanks to that old geezer with the boater, we have another standard...Gigi proved TWICE that good movie musicals (MGM's last biggie, in 1958) rarely succeed on Broadway. Think about it and name 2. The Producers, there! Name one more.

Enough prattling.  Send money to Jazz 90.1.  Make some fresh 20s in your basement and air express them. PLEDGE DRIVE!!!  



We're In The Money (Karen Prunczik, Wanda Richert, Ginny King, 42nd
               Street)
America (Chita Rivera, Ken Le Roy, West Side Story)
Cool (Tucker Smith, Russ Tamblyn, Jet Ensemble, West Side Story)
Gee Officer Krupke (Russ Tamblyn, Tucker Smith, Jet Ensemble, West Side
               Story)
She Is Not Thinking Of Me (Corey Cott, Gigi)
I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore (Maurice Chevalier, Gigi)
Gigi (Corey Cott, Gigi)
I Never Wanted This (Lisa Howard, It Shoulda Been You)
It Shoulda Been You (Chip Zien, Tyne Daly, Josh Grisetti, Ensemble, It 
               Shoulda Been You)
Where Did I Go Wrong? (Harriet Harris, It Shoulda Been You)
River Of No Return (Marilyn Monroe, River Of No Return)
It All Depends On You (Doris Day, Love Me Or Leave Me)
Do What You Do (Bobby Short, K-RA-ZY About Gershwin)
The Music And The Mirror (Donna McKechnie, A Chorus Line)
Seasons Of Love (Ensemble, Rent)
I Got Life (Gavin Creel, Hair)
Island (Sherie Rene Scott, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown)
The Microphone (Brian Stokes-Mitchell, Women On The Verge Of A Nervous
              Breakdown)
Walking Among My Yesterdays (Robert Goulet, The Happy Time)
Long Before I Knew You (Barbara Cook, Bells Are Ringing)
Autumn (Margery Cohen, Starting Here, Starting Now)
Try To Remember (John Barrowman, The Fantasticks)
We Own The Night (Melanie Moore, Mathew Morrison, Ensemble,
              Finding Neverland)
When I Grow Up (Adrianna Bertola, Lauren Ward, Matilda)
Dear Theodosia (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom, Jr., Hamilton)
Wait For It (Leslie Odom, Jr., Hamilton)
His Name Is Lancelot (Darren Southworth, Tom Goodman-Hill, Spamalot)
We Saw The Light (Kate Reinders, John Cariani, Brooks Ashmanskas,
               Something Rotten!)

Happy 90th to Angela!

 Angela's debut...and a pretty impressive one!

In Gaslight with Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotten,

she played Cockney maid, Nancy Oliver.

At 17 years of age, Angela had to be accompanied by a 

social worker on set.

She earned $500 a week, and an Academy Award Nomination

for Best Supporting Actress.

 A shot from Til The Clouds Roll By, 1947...

 and The Harvey Girls, 1946.

 Lunch break with Basil Rathbone on the set of 

The Court Jester, 1956.

 In The Manchurian Candidate, 1962,

Angela played Laurence Harvey's mother, Mrs. Iselin,

but in reality she was only 3 years older (at 37).

Lucille Ball was briefly considered for the role. 

Mame brought Angela to Broadway...

when Roz Russell backed out of the role.

A glamorous part, with over 20 costume changes,

10 songs and dance routines.

Angela came out on top, of course,

with a Tony Award for Best Actress

and super-stardom.

 As Mrs. Lovett (top) in Sondheim's Sweeney (1979),

for which Angela won her 4th Tony,

and Madame Arcati in Blythe Spirit.

Oh, and in between...12 years of the

very popular Murder, She Wrote,

in which Angela starred and later co-produced.

"From ingenue to dowager," 

in 90 short years...

Sunday Snaps...more random-ocity!

 We're on random this Sunday....

so we pair a bit of Guys and Dolls

(that's Johnny Silver, Frank Sinatra and Stubby Kaye, of course)

with...

 

 ...Robert Morse in How To Succeed, with...

 

The Book of Mormon!

That's Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad, in the ties.

And then there's this trio of clowns:

Jules Munshin, Joseph Buloff, and Peter Lorre

NOT yearning for "Siberia"

from Silk Stockings.

Playlist for Sunday, October 18, 2015: So Random

Finally.  Broadway (the real one) did NOT want to release me from its clutches this past weekend. I saw Something Rotten!  Well, not that rotten...actually, it was all pretty damn good, with the exception of Times Square, which seems exponentially brighter and busier than I ever remember it.  But it was great to be back in the city, raising toasts (and blisters), singing along with Brian D'Arcy James's Nick Bottom (to the annoyance of my seatmates), sampling ethnic food that one canNOT get in upstate New York, and having just a HELLUVA time.

Now back to reality: This Sunday is Jazz 90.1 Pledge Drive Sunday!  Where we plead/beg/kneel on rice, to raise dough for non-profit Jazz Radio! So with all our chat, we may not get to all of these wonderful songs...or we may get to more, so the words Random, Surprising, Disconnected, and Free For All come to mind.  Apologies ahead of time.  One total newbie: Hamilton! It will come on like hip hop, it will make you say "Has Kim lost the few marbles she still owns?" But hang with it, O Ye of Little Faith! It's just New Broadway...another generation.

Also heads up for Bernadette's rendition of "Send in the Clowns," accompanied by the composer, Stephen Sondheim, himself.  Peter Lorre in a "Siberia" trio. And Shirley Temple on the same playlist as Kinky Boots.

So enjoy the Random.  And give us a call. Jazz 90.1 could use your contribution, the best "standing ovation" 2 On The Aisle can get. :)


Oh, What A Beautiful Morning (John Raitt, Oklahoma!)
Big Spender (Ann Reinking, Fosse)
I Got Rhythm (Max Von Essen, Brandon Uranowitz, Robert Fairchild,
              An American In Paris)
Wouldn't It Be Lovely? (Julie Andrews, Ensemble, My Fair Lady)
Til There Was You (Barbara Cook, Robert Preston, The Music Man)
Mein Herr (Liza Minnelli, Cabaret)
The Worst Pies In London (Angela Lansbury, Sweeney Todd)
Hello, Dolly! (Carol Channing, Ensemble, Hello, Dolly!)
Hello (Andrew Rannells, Josh Gad, Ensemble, The Book Of Mormon)
To Life (Zero Mostel, Ensemble, Fiddler On The Roof)
Sit Down You're Rockin' The Boat (Stubby Kaye, Guys And Dolls)
The Hot Dog Song (Helene Yorke, Bullets Over Broadway)
The Brotherhood Of Man (Robert Morse, Rudy Vallee, Ruth Kobart,
               Ensemble, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying)
The Room Where It Happens (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom, Jr.,
               Daveed Diggs, Ensemble, Hamilton)
The Sex Is In The Heel (Billy Porter, Stark Sands, Company, Kinky Boots)
A Shine On Your Shoes (Fred Astaire, The Band Wagon)
Siberia (Jules Munshin, Joseph Buloff, Peter Lorre, Silk Stockings)
Send In The Clowns (Bernadette Peters, A Little Night Music)
My Funny Valentine (Kim Novak, Pal Joey)
Smash! (Megan Hilty, Katherine McPhee, Bombshell)
Dirty Rotten Number (John Lithgo, Norbert Leo Butz, Dirty Rotten
                Scoundrels)
The Pinstripes Are All That They See (Tom Wopat, Aaron Tveit, Catch Me
                If You Can)
It's Not Where You Start (Tommy Tune, Company, Seesaw)
Goodnight, My Love (Shirley Temple,

Get Ready!

Hamilton is blowing them away on Broadway...

so we'll sample a song on October 18th,

and follow it up with more soon.

Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote and stars in

"the very model of a modern fast paced musical"

that uses hip-hop, rap, jazz, rock and Broadway...wonderfully!

Bottom's Gonna Be On Top!

Nothing rotten in Something Rotten!

Brian D'Arcy James and Christian Borle

as Nick Bottom and Will Shakespeare.

A Renaissance Tapping Duel...

Playlist for Sunday, October 11, 2015: Everything Old is New Again...

I am Broadway Bound this coming weekend...yup, the Great White Way, where people tap dance in the cross walks, form random kicklines waiting for the subway, and are ALL STARS!  Yup, that's for me.  :)

So you folks will have a deja vu experience all over again, with a show from August 9, 2015...which featured La Cage Aux Folles, South Pacific, 1776...and like a topper on a Broadway wedding cake, Andrea Martin, Yma Sumac and tons O Leonard Bernstein.  Hope it all creates warm, fuzzy feelings and you'll end up missing LIVE me!

Enjoy and back soon...


The Best of Times Is Now (George Hearn, Company, La Cage Aux Folles)
There Is Nothin' Like A Dame (Myron McCormick, Ensemble, South Pacific)
Bali Ha'i (Juanita Hall, South Pacific)
Honey Bun (Mary Martin, South Pacific)
Bloody Mary (Ensemble, South Pacific)
We Dance (Eric Riley, Milton Craig Nealy, Ensemble, Once On This Island)
Shall We Dance? (Fred Astaire, Shall We Dance?)
The More We Dance (John Lithgow, Sherie Rene Scott, Dirty Rotten
                Scoundrels)
Sunday In The Park With George (Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters,
                Sunday In The Park With George)
No Life (Charles Kimbrough, Dana Ivey, Sunday In The Park With George)
Finishing The Hat (Mandy Patinkin, Sunday In The Park With George)
Ballet At The Village Vortex (Instrumental, Wonderful Town)
Time Square Dance (Instrumental, On The Town)
Prologue (Instrumental, West Side Story)
Pernambuco (Ensemble, Where's Charley?)
Night Of My Nights (Richard Kiley, Kismet)
Birds/Enchantment (Yma Sumac, Flahooley)
Grasslands Chant (Ensemble, Lion King)
Sit Down, John (William Daniels, Ensemble, 1776)
Molasses To Rum (Clifford Davis, 1776)
The Lees Of Old Virginia (William Daniels, Howard DaSilva, Ron Holgate,
                 1776)
Pretty Lady (Darren Lee, Hoon Lee, Telly Leung, Pacific Overtures)
Please Hello (Evan D'Angeles, Frances Jue, Daniel Jay Park, Scott Watanabe,
                 Pacific Overtures)
Will Power (Christian Borle, Something Rotten!)
I Love The Way (Kate Reinders, John Cariani, Something Rotten!)
Bottom's Gonna Be On Top (Brian D'Arcy James, Christian Borle, Something
                Rotten!)
Professional Showbizness Comedy (Andrea Martin, Tom Mardirosian,
                My Favorite Year)

Seven Brothers...and the "Best Bride"

 Good genes/jeans.

Imagine having siblings like this...

Amongst the brothers were Tommy Rall,

Russ Tamblyn, Jacques d'Amboise, Matt Mattox,

Jeff Richards and Marc Platt.

(See the Amazon at the end?...Julie Newmar!)

All were professional dancers with the exception of Jeff,

who was a baseball player.

Michael Kidd, the choreographer, put Jeff in the back row a lot,

or sat him in a chair to "observe" which left his partner, Miss Julie

(a classically trained dancer)

out of luck!

 All based on Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Sobbin' Women".

a short story that was IN TURN based on Plutarch's little "rape" tale.

It's all played for fun here.(!?!?!?)

Anyway, if you can get passed that...here's Howard Keel singing the tale.

 Jane Powell and Howard...

of course she made him sleep in a tree til he saw right!

In her book, The Girl Next Door, Jane said that MGM 

was much more interesting in Brigadoon,

their "other" movie filming at the same time,

than Seven Brides.

So much so that they took money from Seven's budget 

and gave it to Brigadoon.

Julie Newmar (Newmeyer!)

as the "best bride."

A ballerina, who would later morph into Cat Woman.

Her singing voice was dubbed

(as were several of the brothers and brides),

because Michael Kidd had his priorities straight!

Jack Cassidy...Hubba Hubba

 Stage, Film and Television...

all were Jack Cassidy's domain.

Born in 1944, in Richmond Hill, New York...

Jack appeared in on Broadway in She Loves Me,

Maggie Flynn, Wish You Were Here, and many more.

TV (like Colombo, The Hitchcock Hour, Hawaii 5-0, and Gunsmoke),

and films (including The Eiger Sanction and FBI Code 98)...

The character of Ted Knight on The Mary Tyler Moore Show

was supposedly modelled after Jack,

and in one episode, Jack played Ted's egotistical broadcasting brother.

 Here with his second wife, Shirley Jones...

 From It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman...

with Patricia Morand, Michael O'Sullivan,

Bob Holliday (as the Man Of Steel)

Linda Lavin, and Don Chastain (seated).

Below...Linda and Jack.

 With Carol Burnett in Fade Out - Fade In,

a 1964 Jule Styne/Comden and Green fiasco.

A spoof of Hollywood and its stars of the 1930s,

Fade lasted as long as Carol did.

First she had to recuperate from a taxi accident,

then left to make that TV show.

The musical closed soon after.

Jack came out on top, though: 

He played (of course) the debonair Hollywood leading man

with acres of teeth,

and received a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.

More Fade Out - Fade In,

here with Tina Louise.