Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz (2 page)
Authors: Greg Lawrence,John Kander,Fred Ebb
BOOK: Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz
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by Harold Prince
Until a few years ago John Kander and Fred Ebb were not exactly household names, despite the fact that for almost forty years they have provided the American musical theater with some of its strongest, most durable hits. Songs from their productions are as frequently performed internationally as any created since the golden days of the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, and Richard Rodgers and his two “H” partners, Hart and Hammerstein.
So why didn’t the public know their names? That’s easy: because they are uncommonly publicity-shy. Because their lives amount to so much more than show business. And, paradoxically, because their work is so accessible (and, yes, quintessentially Broadway show business), they have not inspired cultlike adulation. Too accessible. Too popular.
Reaching back to
Cabaret
, their 1966 Broadway hit, which became an equally successful film, you can discern a pattern. Its title song became one of the most-performed songs on records, in clubs, and on variety shows, leaving behind its original musical theater roots.
Cabaret
, their 1966 Broadway hit, which became an equally successful film, you can discern a pattern. Its title song became one of the most-performed songs on records, in clubs, and on variety shows, leaving behind its original musical theater roots.
Some years later the same phenomenon took place with “New York, New York,” lifted from a less successful film to become not just an anthem to our city but an alternative national anthem.
I am told that a whopping 10 percent of the kids in our
schools can’t find the United States on a world map. Clearly, if they were asked what our national anthem was, “New York, New York” would win hands down.
schools can’t find the United States on a world map. Clearly, if they were asked what our national anthem was, “New York, New York” would win hands down.
Though I knew both John and Fred separately, the new Kander and Ebb songwriting team was introduced to me by their music publisher, Tommy Valando (who, incidentally, also represented Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Stephen Sondheim at one time or another). Apparently, Kander and Ebb (with Tommy’s encouragement) had written one musical together,
Golden Gate
, perhaps as an exercise to see if the collaboration worked. I either never knew that or have forgotten. I am forgetful, but not because of my accrued years; I am proud to say I have been forgetting all my life. Anyway, at the time, in my capacity as the producer, I had acquired the rights to Lester Atwell’s novel
Love Is Just around the Corner.
It was a story about young Communists in our country during the post-Depression period. I brought it to Kander and Ebb, and they signed on, but not until they had written a few songs on spec. (More of that process will be covered later in this book.)
Golden Gate
, perhaps as an exercise to see if the collaboration worked. I either never knew that or have forgotten. I am forgetful, but not because of my accrued years; I am proud to say I have been forgetting all my life. Anyway, at the time, in my capacity as the producer, I had acquired the rights to Lester Atwell’s novel
Love Is Just around the Corner.
It was a story about young Communists in our country during the post-Depression period. I brought it to Kander and Ebb, and they signed on, but not until they had written a few songs on spec. (More of that process will be covered later in this book.)
That project became
Flora, the Red Menace
, a musical introducing Liza Minnelli to Broadway and containing an evergreen score, which still lives, and a leaden book, long deceased.
Flora, the Red Menace
, a musical introducing Liza Minnelli to Broadway and containing an evergreen score, which still lives, and a leaden book, long deceased.
We followed
Flora
barely a year later with
Cabaret
, and the fellows began their successful journey. We worked together two seasons later on
Zorba,
a musical that I believe is the equal of anything they’ve written. I think bad luck dogged that production, and perhaps some bad judgment. So, though it has never been as popular as
Cabaret
or
Kiss of the Spider Woman
or
Chicago,
it is a masterwork. Its opening number, “Life Is What You Do While You’re Waiting to Die,” isn’t exactly what audiences paid big bucks to see. Not exactly escapist. But it is brilliant. And appropriate. Fred and John are stubbornly courageous. They are artists.
Flora
barely a year later with
Cabaret
, and the fellows began their successful journey. We worked together two seasons later on
Zorba,
a musical that I believe is the equal of anything they’ve written. I think bad luck dogged that production, and perhaps some bad judgment. So, though it has never been as popular as
Cabaret
or
Kiss of the Spider Woman
or
Chicago,
it is a masterwork. Its opening number, “Life Is What You Do While You’re Waiting to Die,” isn’t exactly what audiences paid big bucks to see. Not exactly escapist. But it is brilliant. And appropriate. Fred and John are stubbornly courageous. They are artists.
John is a serious musician, a composer of operas, film scores, and symphonic works. Fred is a poet; the best lyricists must be.
Both are voracious readers, infinitely inquisitive, articulate, and responsible citizens. They love to work, but they don’t live to work. John and Fred have outside worlds—busy, loving, and private.
Both are voracious readers, infinitely inquisitive, articulate, and responsible citizens. They love to work, but they don’t live to work. John and Fred have outside worlds—busy, loving, and private.
On a more personal note, I love working with them. It’s fun. I can recall only one occasion when they and I did not get along, when—more accurately—they lost patience with me. Some years after
Zorba
, we opened
Kiss of the Spider Woman
for a summer’s run in Toronto with Chita Rivera in the title role. The show was well received and heading to London prior to Broadway. There was only one major problem: Chita’s number in the middle of act 1. It was designed to leaven the seriousness of the prison scene surrounding it. It failed.
Zorba
, we opened
Kiss of the Spider Woman
for a summer’s run in Toronto with Chita Rivera in the title role. The show was well received and heading to London prior to Broadway. There was only one major problem: Chita’s number in the middle of act 1. It was designed to leaven the seriousness of the prison scene surrounding it. It failed.
In July of 1992, I took my family to Venice for a vacation and John and Fred returned to New York to write a new number. Chita soldiered on in Canada, eight performances a week, belting and dancing and dancing and belting this material which never delivered. FedExed tapes came from New York to the Gritti Palace in Venice. I would play them, then fax John and Fred a disappointed reaction. I suppose I didn’t bother to cushion my criticisms. But as successive tapes arrived—who remembers how many? — I like to think my replies were increasingly gentle, if weary (subtext: despairing?). Finally, one day in August, I received not a FedEx but a fax from Fred. I wish I had kept it, but I’ll paraphrase it:
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM US? YOU’RE IN VENICE PLAYING. WE’RE IN NEW YORK WRITING. COME HOME AND WE’LL GET IT DONE.
So I came home—well, to Toronto, where
Spider Woman
was completing its run. Chita was still performing the number, never once complaining, never once the diva, though God knows she had the right to be.
Spider Woman
was completing its run. Chita was still performing the number, never once complaining, never once the diva, though God knows she had the right to be.
In one face-to-face session, followed by probably a day’s writing, John and Fred came up with a brand-new number entitled “Where You Are.” It called for an iconic Dietrich figure, Chita, in white tie and tails singing and dancing with eight prisoners. Rob Marshall choreographed it, giving each of the prisoners canes made of prison bars and slouched fedoras. It was introduced for the London opening, where it stopped the show, as it did for the next three seasons there and in New York. I think it is the highlight of
Spider Woman’
s marvelous score because it makes pure entertainment of the central metaphor which prompted the show.
Spider Woman’
s marvelous score because it makes pure entertainment of the central metaphor which prompted the show.
Think about it: isn’t that Kander and Ebb’s special gift, to crystallize in words and music the driving metaphor of each of their shows?
In their conversations for this book, John and Fred suggest what I have always known: that there is something incredibly optimistic and youthful about their work. They are not cynical fellows. They have verve and innocence and energy, and I think of these as common to great American theater composing. Read what they have to say as they look back on their collaboration and share the intelligence, craft, and buoyancy of their huge contribution.
Returning to my original observation: if Kander and Ebb were not household names for all those productive years, what really matters is that they are now.
And Then We Wrote
B
roadway’s longest-running music-and-lyrics team, John Kander and Fred Ebb marked the fortieth anniversary of their collaboration with a series of conversations aimed at chronicling their careers. These discussions took place over the kitchen table in Ebb’s home, an elegant retreat on Manhattan’s Central Park West where the songwriters have worked during most of their years together. A few blocks away in Kander’s brownstone, one of the living room walls displays a piece of memorabilia that aptly defines their enduring relationship. Mounted inside a glass frame is a huge enlargement of a crossword puzzle with one highlighted clue: “Partner of Ebb.” The answer circled below the puzzle reads “John Kander.”
roadway’s longest-running music-and-lyrics team, John Kander and Fred Ebb marked the fortieth anniversary of their collaboration with a series of conversations aimed at chronicling their careers. These discussions took place over the kitchen table in Ebb’s home, an elegant retreat on Manhattan’s Central Park West where the songwriters have worked during most of their years together. A few blocks away in Kander’s brownstone, one of the living room walls displays a piece of memorabilia that aptly defines their enduring relationship. Mounted inside a glass frame is a huge enlargement of a crossword puzzle with one highlighted clue: “Partner of Ebb.” The answer circled below the puzzle reads “John Kander.”
Fred Ebb, the son of Harry and Anna Evelyn (Gritz) Ebb, was born April 8, 1936, in Manhattan. He graduated from New York University in 1955 and received a master’s degree in English literature from Columbia University in 1957. John Kander, the son of Harold and Bernice (Aaron) Kander, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 18, 1927. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1951, and later earned an M.A. at Columbia, where he studied composition with Jack Beeson, Otto Luening, and Douglas Moore.
Kander began his career in 1956 as the pianist for
The Amazing Adele and An Evening with Beatrice Lillie.
He later prepared
dance arrangements for
Gypsy
and
Irma la Douce.
In 1962 Kander co-wrote A
Family Affair
with James and William Goldman and made his Broadway debut as a composer. That same year Kander met Ebb, who was writing special material for nightclub acts and contributing to revues, including
Vintage 1960, Put It in Writing,
and
From A to
Z. Ebb also wrote for the satirical television show
That Was the Week That Was.
The Amazing Adele and An Evening with Beatrice Lillie.
He later prepared
dance arrangements for
Gypsy
and
Irma la Douce.
In 1962 Kander co-wrote A
Family Affair
with James and William Goldman and made his Broadway debut as a composer. That same year Kander met Ebb, who was writing special material for nightclub acts and contributing to revues, including
Vintage 1960, Put It in Writing,
and
From A to
Z. Ebb also wrote for the satirical television show
That Was the Week That Was.
Referring to their songs, Kander says, “I think when we’re at our best we sound like one person.” But when they reminisce with each other, as they do here, two distinct voices can be heard: Kander, the unflappable Midwesterner, mild-mannered and buoyantly optimistic, and Ebb, the acerbic New Yorker who wears his wit and insecurities on his sleeve. The longevity of their collaboration rests in part on the fact that while the two may often disagree, they have never had a serious fight or falling out since they started working together. Their dialogue is at times like one of their musicals, as either may be prompted to break into song and Kander may dash to the piano at any moment to provide accompaniment. In this first conversation, the songwriters recall the years leading up to their partnership.
JOHN KANDER: I remember very distinctly the first piece of music I wrote. I was in the second grade, and my teacher, Miss Mathews, asked me a question in arithmetic class that I wasn’t able to answer. I was in the back of the room, naturally, and she said, “What are you doing?” I told her, “I’m writing a Christmas carol.” She obviously assumed that was a dodge and came over to my desk. There was my Christmas carol, written in large scrawled notes with lyrics about Jesus and the manger. She had me stay after class and she played it on the piano. The school choir later sang it at a Christmas assembly. But I didn’t find out until years
later that my teacher had called my parents to say, “I just want to tell you that John wrote a Christmas carol. Is that all right? I know that you’re Jewish.”
later that my teacher had called my parents to say, “I just want to tell you that John wrote a Christmas carol. Is that all right? I know that you’re Jewish.”
I grew up in a Jewish family that had been in Kansas City, Missouri, for a number of generations, so being a Jewish family meant practically nothing except that we knew we were Jewish. We were much less tied to the traditional Jewish neuroses, those famous neuroses that supposedly exist. There were a couple of rabbis in the family, but we only observed on the High Holy Days, and we also celebrated Christmas.
FRED EBB : The impression I have of your family is that they encouraged your interest in music and theater, whereas mine did not.
KANDER: My family was supportive by nature, and I was fortunate in that way. I was born in 1927, and music was an interest that I had from the time I was four. But my whole family loved music. My father loved to sing. He had a big, booming baritone voice, and after dinner we would often gather in the living room. I would play the piano and my father would sing. My brother, Edward, liked to sing, and my aunt played the piano. My mother was tone-deaf, but she had rhythm. After we finished making music, Dad would sometimes say, “Play a march for your mother.” Then I would play a march and my mother would get up and march around her chair. Another of my early memories is of my aunt Rheta putting her hands over my hands on the keys. That made a chord, and as a boy, it was about the most thrilling thing that ever happened to me.
Music in our home was just fun. There were no professionals. In those days we made music to entertain ourselves. The kind of encouragement that I received over the years was essentially just to keep making music as long as it was fun. We were never very achievement-oriented, and I was never pushed into having a career. I didn’t have any great drive to become a professional musician.
Thinking as a Midwesterner, I would say that for my parents’ generation, music as family entertainment in the home was a perfectly normal activity, and in our home it flourished. Many homes had pianos. Radio existed when I was boy but certainly not television, and recordings were expensive.
Thinking as a Midwesterner, I would say that for my parents’ generation, music as family entertainment in the home was a perfectly normal activity, and in our home it flourished. Many homes had pianos. Radio existed when I was boy but certainly not television, and recordings were expensive.
I grew up at a time when even among people who were not artistically inclined there was a healthy respect for the arts and a belief shared by everyone in my family that if you were going to be a whole personality, music and theater were activities that you enjoyed. There were music-appreciation classes and concerts, but there was also a thoughtfulness about what art meant and how it enriched people’s lives. The Philharmonic gave a series of children’s concerts that we went to, and this was Kansas City in the thirties, not New York. My father and my grandparents had a certain knowledge that came to them through their schooling of what theater was, what opera was, not that they were heavy thinkers about any of this. Music and theater were simply a part of their world. I think those cultural differences in our backgrounds affect the two of us more than anything else.
EBB: Growing up Jewish and lower middle class in New York City, I never had a hint of that kind of culture. As a boy, I had very little exposure to the arts. I would not have known what Philharmonic meant. I had no idea what an opera or a concert hall looked like until much later in life.
KANDER : My mother’s father had a poultry- and eggprocessing business, and my father worked for him. They had plants in several places in Missouri and Kansas, and my brother and I often drove with my father to visit them. My father’s entire emphasis, the joy of his life, was his family. He adored my mother and loved his kids and also loved to have a good time. My parents had a passionate relationship up until the day my father died in 1949, and they were both people who believed that you ought to try to be happy and make the best of any situation
you encountered. They passed that down to their two sons. My brother and I are extremely close. Edward is three and a half years older and loves theater and music but has no particular talents in that direction. I’ve felt a little guilty at times having established my life in the theater, but he’s been very gracious about my career. When we would go to the theater together as boys, my parents would be sitting between us and the lights would go down and instinctively we would lean forward and look at each other.
you encountered. They passed that down to their two sons. My brother and I are extremely close. Edward is three and a half years older and loves theater and music but has no particular talents in that direction. I’ve felt a little guilty at times having established my life in the theater, but he’s been very gracious about my career. When we would go to the theater together as boys, my parents would be sitting between us and the lights would go down and instinctively we would lean forward and look at each other.
EBB: That’s right out of Norman Rockwell.
KANDER : It may be a cliché, but it was true.
EBB: Oh, I’m envious of all of that. I have nothing like that in my life. Looking back, I can honestly say I don’t believe my mother and father ever touched each other in my presence. I never saw them kiss or embrace. He worked in a store on East Broadway selling clothes on the installment plan. When he came home, he would sit down with a newspaper and pay no attention to my mother until he was called for dinner. They stayed together with their children as their only common interest, me and my two sisters, Norma and Estelle, who were both more than ten years older than I was. I never saw my father pick up a book. He had no interest whatsoever in anything that would have interested me. I don’t mean to judge. He did the best he could, as hardworking as he was.
I remember that he entered me in some talent contests in Atlantic City. I know I was little and I guess I was sort of cute. I would stand on a table and sing “Shuffle Off to Buffalo.” I always won the twenty-five dollars and my father would take the money from me. That was the end of that. I remember one night the door opened and two cops were standing there with my father. He had been in an automobile accident on the Queensborough Bridge. All the women in the family were screaming and yelling, “Poor Pop!” He walked in, and I think it all confounded him. I was just a little bitty thing, but I remember the blood on his face
and the two cops bringing him in. I guess if I were in analysis I would tell that story pretty quick. He was only fifty-two when he died, or was it fifty-four? I think more than anything else his business finally killed him.
and the two cops bringing him in. I guess if I were in analysis I would tell that story pretty quick. He was only fifty-two when he died, or was it fifty-four? I think more than anything else his business finally killed him.
Neither my father nor anyone else in my family had any inclination toward music or theater. My interest came about from listening to recordings that I would play and play until they turned white. I was always bewildered by the prospect of what would become of me, and because my family was Jewish, that was always a prominent question. What would become of a boy later in life when he has to make a living and support a family? As an adolescent, I felt enormous pressure because of that family concern about my future, and I remember that I was unhappy from that time on. I didn’t want to be anything my parents had in mind for me, like being a lawyer or doctor. The theater eventually became my escape. I always lived in a fantasy world as a boy, and my fantasy life started to center itself in the theater when I was old enough to appreciate it in my early teens. I felt such joy sitting there in the darkness of the theater, watching the magic onstage. It was such a liberating release for me.
I saved money for Broadway shows and bought standing room, which was fifty-five cents in those days. Sometimes I would go to the theater and ask the concessionaire if he needed help checking coats or selling orange drink during intermission. That’s how I managed to see
The Glass Menagerie,
which was one of the first shows I saw back in the forties. Eddie Dowling directed it and played the son. Julie Hayden, Anthony Ross, and Laurette Taylor were also in it. I thought it was spectacular. Laurette Taylor played the mother, and she killed me. I went back many times and I loved every performance. She had a piece of business where she turned around and walked upstage, and as she walked, she reached behind her and pulled her girdle down. I thought,
Oh my God, how amazing that is!
It may have been something
that she improvised, but she did it every night, and I wanted to see her play that part every night of my life. I wanted to live in the theater and see every show there was.
The Glass Menagerie,
which was one of the first shows I saw back in the forties. Eddie Dowling directed it and played the son. Julie Hayden, Anthony Ross, and Laurette Taylor were also in it. I thought it was spectacular. Laurette Taylor played the mother, and she killed me. I went back many times and I loved every performance. She had a piece of business where she turned around and walked upstage, and as she walked, she reached behind her and pulled her girdle down. I thought,
Oh my God, how amazing that is!
It may have been something
that she improvised, but she did it every night, and I wanted to see her play that part every night of my life. I wanted to live in the theater and see every show there was.
KANDER: My interest in music happened earlier, before I could have had much sense about my life other than where the lights came through the window. But I could hear music in a way. There may be some physiological aspect of this, but I think in terms of becoming a musician, much of the process depends on how you hear and organize sound in your head. From the time I was about six months old until just before my first birthday, I had tuberculosis and had to be isolated. Of course, a child with tuberculosis was quarantined, and I was kept on a sleeping porch. People would come to the door with masks on, and whoever was taking care of me always wore a mask. My earliest memory was hearing the sound of footsteps and voices coming toward me or going away. With that experience, organized sound became very important to me, and I can’t help but believe that it affected the way I organized sound later on in life.
EBB: Jesus, a sleeping porch. I wouldn’t even have known what that was. I never even knew anyone who lived in a
house
.
house
.
KANDER: I remember the first professional musical I ever saw was
Pins and Needles
, a show about the International Garment Workers Union. I loved it, but before that I had been exposed to music and theater in other ways. The Met radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons were a great influence on me. I tried to imagine what the stage looked like and how they presented the stories. One of the earliest experiences I had with opera was a tattered old company called the San Carlo Opera. They came through Kansas City when I was nine, and they did
Aida.
My mother took me and we sat in the first row. There were these giants on the stage, and my feet were dangling over my seat. It was overwhelming for me, even though I could see the strings that held the beards on the Egyptian soldiers.
Pins and Needles
, a show about the International Garment Workers Union. I loved it, but before that I had been exposed to music and theater in other ways. The Met radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons were a great influence on me. I tried to imagine what the stage looked like and how they presented the stories. One of the earliest experiences I had with opera was a tattered old company called the San Carlo Opera. They came through Kansas City when I was nine, and they did
Aida.
My mother took me and we sat in the first row. There were these giants on the stage, and my feet were dangling over my seat. It was overwhelming for me, even though I could see the strings that held the beards on the Egyptian soldiers.
The next day they were doing
Madama Butterfly
, and I made a pest of myself because I wanted to see that as well. My poor mother, who really couldn’t hear music, tried to get out of taking me. She said, “No, you wouldn’t like that one. It’s not very good.” But my aunt offered to take me. So we went to see
Madama Butterfly,
and I came home and never believed a word my mother said about music after that. I don’t know how to say this without sounding slightly pretentious, but it was big theater. It wasn’t just about music, it was about theater. Years later when I saw the company again and realized what I had seen as a boy, I was much less impressed. But my interest in telling a story through music in many ways derived from early experiences like those.
Madama Butterfly
, and I made a pest of myself because I wanted to see that as well. My poor mother, who really couldn’t hear music, tried to get out of taking me. She said, “No, you wouldn’t like that one. It’s not very good.” But my aunt offered to take me. So we went to see
Madama Butterfly,
and I came home and never believed a word my mother said about music after that. I don’t know how to say this without sounding slightly pretentious, but it was big theater. It wasn’t just about music, it was about theater. Years later when I saw the company again and realized what I had seen as a boy, I was much less impressed. But my interest in telling a story through music in many ways derived from early experiences like those.
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