ANTECEDENTS
El teatre grec i romà, els joglars permeten dir que sempre hi ha hagut comèdia amb música i ball. Més tard tenim John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), les sàtires de Jacques Offenbach, les comèdies de Johan Strauss, les operetes com Die Lustige Witve de Franz Lehár, la Zarzuela, el music Hall anglès amb les operetes de Gilbert i Sullivan com el Mikado.
Al segle XIX a Amèrica hi havia els humiliants Minstrel Shows, on actor i ballarins tant blancs com negres, amb la cara pintada, feien una caricatura dels negres presentant-los com a ximples ignorants, amb personatges com Jim Crow i Zip Coon. El gènere seguiria fins ben entrat el s.XX amb intèrprets tant famosos com Al Jonson. S’escriurien cançons expressament per a ell. [ el racisme al món de l’espectacle]. A més, alguns negres actuaven als Medicine Shows i en espectacles per a audiència exclusivament negra, de comèdia i circ, que van posar en marxa al sud l’associació T.O.B.A , en particular les Whitman sisters. [MS] . Els negres fusionaven balls ancestrals amb el que es trobaven d’origen europeu, la Mazurka, la polca, el vals i la quadrilla, la irish Jig i el Lancashire Clog. Marshall Stearns va aplegar Al Minns i Leon James del Savoy, i ballarins de Sierra Leone, Àrica Ocidental i trinidad. I van descobrir afinitats de passos, com el charleston.
El gènere de Vaudeville tenia un seguit d’atraccions de circ, equilibristes, jocs de mans, també cantants i ballarins, i escenes curtes. Del Vaudeville en van sortir artistes extraordinaris com Judy Garland, els Nicholas Brothers. Podien tenir blancs i negres actuant. Alguns Vaudevilles , eren d’intèrprets negres per a audiència negra. I d’aquí en van sortir Ethel Waters (a.k.a. “Sweet Mama Stringbean”), Ma Rainey, Bert Williams – Ziegfeld Follies star, Bessie Smith i Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Hi havia números de blues amb lletres de doble sentit. Va decaure i es va acabar a mitjans dels ’20.
El Burlesque era un seguit d’acudits amb escenes de comèdia i números musicals. Quan va decaure es va intentar reanimar amb números de Strip tease.
https://musicals101.com/1890-1900.htm
1900s http://www.musicals101.com/1900to10.htm època encara dominada per musicals importats d’Anglaterra. 1907 The Merry widow de Franz Lehar amb el seu vals posaria més de moda els balls de saló
- 1902 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , Frank L Baum (film el 1939)
- Es consolida la forma de 32 compassos AABA
1910’s 1920, Tin Pan Alley
Then (1910s) Jerome Kern, Guy Boulton and P.G. Wodehouse took this a step further with the Princess Theatre shows, putting believable people and situations on the musical stage. During the same years, Florenz Ziegfeld introduced his Follies, the ultimate stage revue, gran decoració i noies boniques, que duraria fins als 40s..( exemple amb noies i blackface). Most of New York’s music publishers had offices on a three block stretch of , West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenueswhere the din of pianists at work was compared to housewives banging tin pans, earning that area and the music publishing industry the nickname Tin Pan Alley. És l’època dels balls de saló amb Irene i Vernon Castle que consolidarien el foxtrot. [MS Es balla el cakewalk, el Turkey Trot. D’altres contribucions negres a l’època serien les composisons de W.C. Handy en blues i Perry Bradford que posaria de moda el Black bottom dance, semblant al Charleston] [Bert Williams fou la primera gran estrella negra a triomfar al món de l’espectacle, com a cantant i balla aNobody, una cançó famosa de 1905, en la versió original de Bert Williams , ( i Cecile McLorin Salvant , Nina Simone) [ Irving Berlin, jueu d’origen rus ]
Cakewalk de Stormy Weather
Vernon i Irene Castle
- 1911 Irving Berlin, Alexander’s Ragtime Band
- 1913 Darktown Follies, revista amb Bert Williams, amb música i actors negres, que va tenir un gran èxit, amb història d’amor entre dos negres. Va introduir el Ballin’ the Jack , de Smith & Burris, dos compositors negres, amb passos de ball incorporats ( Gene Kelly i Judy Garland, Gene Kelly 1959). I també el Texas Tommy.
- 1914 Watch your step, Irving Berlin, Irene i Vernon Castle
In the 1920s, the American musical comedy gained worldwide influence. The 1920s was the busiest decade Broadway would ever know, with as many as fifty new musicals opening in a single season. With employment rates running high and incomes on the increase, record numbers of people could afford $3.50 a seat. With so much demand for entertainment, these years were a time of extraordinary artistic development in the musical theatre. Broadway saw the composing debuts of Cole Porter (Episcopalià d’una família rica, però Rodgers deia que escrivia melodies del mediterrà oriental, ” He leaned over and said, “I’ll write Jewish tunes.”, “…he eventually did exactly that. Just hum the melody that goes with ‘Only you beneath and moon and under the sun’ from ‘Night and Day,’ or any of ‘Begin the Beguine,’ or ‘Love for Sale,’ or ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy,’ or ‘I Love Paris.’ These minor-key melodies are unmistakably eastern Mediterranean.” It’s ironic, Rodgers went on, that despite the abundance of Jewish composers (Rodgers, Berlin, Kern, Gershwin), “the most enduring ‘Jewish’ music” was written by a Episcopalian millionaire born on a farm in Peru, Indiana, Cole Porter.”, Rodgers and Hart [Rodgers, d’origen jueu alemany), the Gershwins and many others. The British contributed several intimate reviews and introduced the multi-talented Noel Coward. Kern (Jerome Kern, jueu d’origen alemany) and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the innovative Showboat (1927) the most lasting hit of the 1920s.
[ MS amb Suffle Along hi va haver més musicals negres i el ball es feia més complex. Van escriure números talents com James P. Johnson i Fats Waller. Els bateries aprenien ritmes dels ballarins de claqué. Però els millors ballarins es quedaven al Vaudeville on guanyaven més. Els crítics apreciaven les innovacions dels balladors negres i en particular Bill Robinson. Però es va plantejar una qüestió d’identitat: s’havien de refinar i assemblar més els blancs? s’havien de limitar per ser més fidels a les arrels? No es va acabar d’aprofitar el talent del coreògraf Buddy Bradley, que va acabar treballant a Anglaterra ] A Anglaterra, Noel Coward. Apareixen nous compositors: Rodgers i Hart (Rodgers and Hart’s early shows were lighthearted romps, but some of their songs had surprising, bittersweet undertones. No lyricist ever eclipsed Larry Hart’s gift for capturing the heartbreak of hopeless love. Since romantic frustration plagued his private life, this was not altogether surprising.), Cole Porter i els Gershwins. Al Johnson, America’s top musical stage star of the 1920s was born in a Russian shtetl (a legally segregated Jewish ghetto) in Lithuania sometime during the late 1880s. Soon after his family emigrated to the United States in 1894, young Asa Yoelson decided to become a variety entertainer and changed his name to Al Jolson.
El 1927 es projecta el primer film amb una cançó, the Jazz Singer, amb Al Johnson. Les sales començaran a instal·lar equips de so i aviat filmen amb so pregravat: MGM was the last major studio to switch to sound production, but once it got on the bandwagon, it went first class all the way. The studio’s sound team invented two vital technologies for Broadway Melody – sound editing and pre-recorded soundtracks. (https://musicals101.com/1927-30film2.htm)
- 1921 Shuffle Along (negre), música Noble Sissle i Eubie Blake. With the popular songs “Love Will Find a Way” and “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” Shuffle Along became such a hit that the police converted 63rd Street into a one-way thoroughfare to ease the traffic jams a6 curtain time. The show gave several stellar talents their first major breaks, including Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall and Paul Robeson. (revival)
- 1922 Plantation Revue (negre)
- 1923 Runnin’ Wild amb música de James P. Johnson i en particular el número Charleston.
- 1924 Lady Be Good, Gershwins brought Broadway stardom to Fred Astaire and his sister Adele playing impoverished dancing siblings who try to masquerade their way into a fortune. The title tune and “Fascinating Rhythm” became major hits.
- 1925 No, No Nanette, Vincent Youmans & Irving Caesar’s, amb Tea for Two, I Want to be happy
- 1925 Sunny, Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II
- 1927 Funny Face, Gershwins featured Adele Astaire as a girl trying to get back her diary from her guardian (Fred), opening the way for a series of mishaps. The score included “S’Wonderful,” “My One And Only,” and the title tune.
- 1927 Good News . The plot about a wealthy football hero who has to pass an exam so he can play in the big game and win the impoverished girl he loves inspired a slew of imitations on stage and screen, but none could match the infectious score composed by Ray Henderson with lyrics by Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown. Their dance-happy songs included “The Best Things in Life Are Free,” “Lucky in Love” and “The Varsity Drag,” a Charleston-style number that became an international dance craze.
- 1927 Show Boat,Telling the epic story of how the inhabitants of a Mississippi show boat survive from the 1880’s to the 1920s, this show deals with racism, interracial romance, marital heartbreak and alcoholism – subjects that had previously been considered taboo in musical theatre.The ground-breaking libretto was matched by an innovative, character-driven score with such hits as “Make Believe,”, “Old Man River” and “You Are Love.” Producció audaç de Ziegfield.
- 1928 Keep Shufflin,(n)
- 1928 Blackbirds (n), amb Bill Robinson
- 1928 Paris, Cole Porter, Let’s do it.
- 1929 Deep Harlem, un musical que volia reflectir la música i dansa de l’Àfrica a Harlem
- 1929 Hot Chocolates (n)
CINEMA
1927 The Jazz Singer amb Al Johnson