Summaries of Friday Musicals!
What are the “Friday Movie Musicals”?
Friday Movie Musicals are a once a week look into recommended musicals with a Touch of Jazz! Music and lyrics by noted jazz-age composers, like the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Sammy Cahn, and Cole Porter are the golden age musical. Each week, I choose a different musical to discuss the impact it had on my own musical journey. The take on jazz that finds a home in musicals is found nowhere else!. Jazz is still true in today’s musicals—read about it with us!
That touch of Jazz!
“As noted already, my lifelong love of musicals has been a prompting for a life of singing and love of music. I was amazed to learn that Matt also was drawn to composing for musicals and playing those tunes. A different generation of musicals for him, I suppose, but we both were influenced and have studied composition for the musical.”
Susan LaVelle
Where is the list of Just a Touch of Jazz recommended musicals?
You can go back and read about each of the musicals in the links below (The first two were sent out in Just a Touch of Jazz Insider emails. ):
- 1 “So in Love” from “Kiss Me Kate” (Cole Porter) Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel. Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Kiss-Me-Kate
- 2 “Johnny’s Soliloquy” from “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (Meredith Willson), Harve Presnell. Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Unsinkable-Molly-Brown
- 3 “Pick Yourself Up” from “Swing Time” (Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields) Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers. Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Swing-Time
- 4 “Dancing in the Dark” from “The Bandwagon (Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz) Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Bandwagon-email
- 5 “Snow” (Irving Berlin) from “White Christmas” 1954 Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye, Vera Ellen (Trudy Stevens sang for Vera Ellen). Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Snow-email
- 6 “Do-Re-Mi” from “Sound of Music (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II) 1964 Julie Andrews, Sound of Music children. Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Do-Re-Mi-Insider-email
- 7 “An American in Paris Ballet” from 1951 “American in Paris” (Alan Jay Lerner, Story; George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Music; Vincente Minnelli, Director; Gene Kelly, Choreography;) Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Nina Foch, Georges Guétary. Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/An-American-in-Paris-email
- 8 “The Man I Love,” which you can listen to Just a Touch of Jazz’s “Live” recording, here: https://tinyurl.com/The-Man-I-Love
- 9 “Prepare Ye the Way” from 1973 “Godspell” (Music: Stephen Schwartz, John-Michael Tebelak), David Haskell & cast. Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Godspell-email
- 10. “Cool” from 1961 “West Side Story” Conceived by: Jerome Robbins, Music: Leonard Bernstein, lyrics: Stephen Sondheim, Book: Arthur Laurents) Cast. Read the Insider email: https://tinyurl.com/Cool-email
