A lot of people think they don't like jazz because they think it's ethnic or all weird sounds (like the be-bop version can be to some), but you really hear more jazz than you realize in films and commercials and even its influence in modern music. If you hear some good jazz played well, you'll like it. It's the most American of all forms of music.
And don't worry that it's a rehashing of Bernstein's music. It's just a different arrangement for the fairly big band (but not as big as an orchestra) that just heightens the emphasis in certain section by including different instruments, or spotlighting a solo performance or slowing the tempo a little. Plus every person in the band is good enough to be performing solo or headling a band of his own. Great musicians playing great music in away that lets you hear it a little differently. It's all a very lush sound. In fact, go to Amazon.com and call up West Side Story by Stan Kenton and just read all the things that other people wrote in about it. Believe me, you won't be disappointed.
Ah, it really wasn't that bad--that sort of stuff only happened in South San Antonio, which is the second toughest part of that city after the West side, which is where the barrio was. The barrio and cheap housing for poorer Anglos kinda merged together in South San, where my cousin lived. My brother and I often spent the summers with him and when we were little kids we went to the neighborhood recreation hall and pool all the time and never had any trouble. The fights only started when we reach puberty and have to start proving something to everyone. Mostly I lived in smaller towns where there were no gangs or stuff like that, and I went to school with Hispanics all the time and had no problems. Liked them in fact. Still do.
Oh, if you haven't heard much of Darin, you've got a treat coming! Hunt down a tape or CD of his greatest hits. These I know are still available because he was and is still so popular. Listen to some of the big band numbers he did like "Mack the Knife" (originally from the Threepenny Opera which was done in Germany nearly 100 years ago but totally updated in the Darin version), Beyond the Sea (my personal favorite and the title of a movie about Darin that came out a few years ago), and especially the swinging version of "Artificial Flowers." He had the voice and range and the acting ability to do Broadway musicals.
If you liked Russ Tamblyn's dancing in WSS, you'd love him in
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a Broadway play made into a movie and then released on both VHS and DVD, I think. He was very acrobatic. I remember a picture that appeared in Life or Look or one of those magazines about 40 years ago that showed him and his girlfriend (or new bride, I forget which) walking down the street, but it was staged so that he was right in the middle of a backward flip where he's pointing straight up in the air.
As for Rita, I saw her once. She came to the paper where I worked to see our movie or music or theater reviewer, came in dressed very well with a mink stole and jewelry, very pretty, so as she approached my desk I said, "Hey, Rita! Looking good!!! And she looked over and just smiled. Very pretty woman, then and later.
I'm sure we will. You're a real pleasure to chat with.[/quote]
Hey---thanks again, rufnek! You're right about jazz being present everywhere, including film, commercials, etc. Never gave it much thought, although I've always been aware that the music from both the film version and the stage version of
West Side Story are a combo of jazz, pop, salsa music, etc. I'll have to look into the Amazon opinion of Stan Kenton's West Side Story--sounds interesting...and cool!! I wonder if it is available on CD. If it is, I might consider buying it, although not right now.
My first introduction to
West Side Story was back in the summer of 1962, when my sister and I attended day camp out West. Another girl in the group I was in, who'd recently received a copy of the LP album of the soundtrack to the original Broadway stage production of WSS, brought the album in and played it for the rest of the group. From that day on, I fell in love with the music of WSS, and all the kids would sing the songs on the bus to and from camp every day. I never did see any of the original Broadway stage productions of
West Side Story, nor did I see the film version of WSS until Christmastime 1968, as a high school senior, when it was past the heyday of its popularity and newness, and shortly before it went on TV. I fell in love with the film instantly.
Four years later, after having forgotten about it, WSS went on TV that spring. I was in an evening class, and someone had brought in a small black-and-white TV, and we gathered around to watch it. That summer, when I went on a six-week trip to Europe, someone in the group I was with had brought a cassette tape of the WSS movie soundtrack, which was played almost every evening. My love for WSS was re-awakened, along with a desire to see the film.
Shortly after I came home, I mentioned it to my dad over supper.
Our dialogue about it went something like this:
Me: Gee, I wish I could see the movie
West Side Story again.
Dad: You never forgot it, did you?
Me: No.
When it was aired on TV that Thanksgiving, I watched it, and that was when my love of the film really took off. I've admittedly been hooked on this film since.
Glad you were able to hold your own while growing up, and that you got along with and made friends with the various kids that you went to school with. Without knowing you personally, it sounds like you've always had a good head on your shoulders. Fights start in adolescence, because that's such a tough stage to go through, generally. I think that, particularly in Western societies, the adolescent is often forced to prove him/herself in some way or other.
Regarding Bobby Darin's greatest hits: Since Record Towers, the most prominent record store around, has since closed its doors, I'll have to look elsewhere, such as Newbury Comics or perhaps Borders, or Strawberries for the Stan Henton and Bobby Darin CDs. Something to think about!
Regarding the movie
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which I never saw: If I recall correctly, that one came out even before
West Side Story (the film version) did. Wasn't Tucker Smith also in that one? I heard that he was, and that he was also in the film version of
Sweet Smell of Success, which I also never saw, and came out before the film version of WSS. Tucker Smith was excellent as Jet gang member Ice in
West Side Story; he had both the looks
and the personality for that role. It suited him perfectly. Too bad about Tucker Smith's death. It was tragic, particularly since he died so young.
Nowadays, it seems that they're making musicals out of movies, instead of the other way around.
Since I don't have a DVD player at home, buying or renting those two particular movies could be a problem for me.
Rita Moreno--yup, she's still a very attractive lady. So, you got to see her in person? How cool!!
When I attended a
West Side Story sing-a-long screening at the Brattle Theatre, in Cambridge, MA a year ago last fall, Marni Nixon was in the lobby of the theatre selling and autographing copies of her then-new book,
I Could Have Danced All Night. She seemed pleasant enough, and, although around 80 or so, she looked only in her sixties! She and I chatted briefly before the WSS screening, and, when I told her that WSS is my alltime favorite film, she was happy.
Other actors in WSS: Russ Tamblyn (Riff) and Richard Beymer (Tony) are very good friends in real life, and Russ Tamblyn's daughter, Amber, was involved in some sort of TV program, which I forget the name of, at one point.
As a devout fan of the film
West Side Story, who's also seen a half dozen stage productions of this great musical, I've reached the conclusion that certain types of singing voices and/or music are appropriate for different types of media, if one gets the drift, and I think that WSS is no exception.
Again, rufnek. It's a pleasure to chat with you too. Hope to talk again soon.