come hear the music play

 

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy wearing the pillbox hat designed by Halston

Friday, January 20, 1961

     I wanted to describe the "Liza with a Z" concert, and then I started getting all overwhelmed because it connects to Cabaret and had Bob Fosse as well as Kander and Ebb working on it.  And they also did Cabaret. ...

     And then there's the Broadway tradition and all those songwriting teams:

Rodgers & Hammerstein

Rodgers & Hart

Kander and Ebb

Lerner and Loewe...

     One day I found myself thinking, "OK, all I have to do is write a complete history of Broadway and then it will be easy to show why 'Liza with a Z' was a uniquely thrilling concert."

     Then -- (sanity kicking in) -- Wait a minute...

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songwriting teams and their musicals:

Lerner and Loewe

    My Fair Lady

Kander and Ebb

    Chicago

    Cabaret

Rodgers & Hammerstein

    The Sound of Music

    Oklahoma!

    South Pacific

    The King and I

Rodgers & Hart

    (I don't know -- they came before Rodgers & Hammerstein...same Rodgers...)

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Liza-Z concert included a medley of songs from Cabaret, at the end.

Torch songs "God Bless the Child" and "My Mammy" book-end the concert.

"Yes" and "It was a good time--it was the best time--it was a party--just to be near you..." are jazz nightclub numbers, and Liza and her band rock out on "I Gotcha" by Joe Tex, and a fast-paced, funky cover of the Dusty Springfield hit, "Son of a Preacher Man."

     It's a different thing from a rock and roll concert--it has that Broadway ambience, the specificity of the dancers' routines keeping the attitude of each song on point.  Kind of like -- a song, and a play, tied in with the traditions of ballet and opera.

Pack up all my care and woe, here I go, singing low,

Bye-bye Blackbird.

Where somebody waits for me, sugar's sweet, so is he,

Bye-bye Blackbird.

No one here can love and understand me.

Oh, what hard-luck stories they all hand me.

Make my bed and light the light

I'll arrive -- late tonight,

Blackbird, bye-bye.

        [Mort Dixon / Ray Henderson]

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