Oscar Hammerstein II

My goodness.

Cassandra Wilson meets Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II.

The sky was blue and high above The moon was near and so was love

The secret

You know, Showboat is sort of, if Oklahoma is the father of modern musical theater, Showboat's sort of the grandfather.

And of course, both were Oscar Hammerstein II, one of the greatest in the business to ever do it.

Yeah.

But yeah, Oklahoma was, it's a definite, you know.

Milestone.

It's one of the biggest, for sure.

And it's Rodgers and Hammerstein.

And we're going to be talking about Rodgers and Hammerstein for a little while here on the podcast.

So, yes, this is loosely based on a true story.

The music, obviously, by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.

They were the Broadway people.

You know, if you're a Broadway person, you know.

So one thing that was changed from the stage musical was the amount of sweetness and sentimentality.

The songs Something Good and I Have Confidence were made just for the movie, and other songs from the stage musical were removed.

So Richard Rodgers wrote the music and lyrics for those two songs as Oscar Hammerstein actually died in 1960.

Oh my

From a session of January 1946, we heard all four of the songs, uh, recorded.

Harold Arlen's "It's Only a Paper Moon." Then we heard a up-tempo attacking version of an old standby, an old song even in 1946, Creamer and Layton's "After You've Gone." And then he totally deconstructs, even in the initial melody statement, Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein's "Lover, Come Back to Me." And finally, original piece called "Jamming with Lester." Willie Smith on alto sax, with Prez on tenor, Howard McGhee trumpet, Vic Dickinson trombone, Leslie Jones piano, Curris Countz on bass, and Johnny Otis at the drums.

And then we heard Walter Donaldson's "You're Driving Me Crazy" from an August 1946 session here with Joe Albany at the piano, Irving Ashby guitar, Red Callender bass, and Chico Hamilton on drums backing Prez, Lester Young.

And you're hearing this music on radio station WKCR FM New York, 89.9 on the radio dial here in the New York City area and streaming around the world over the internet at wkcr.org.

And so she was never, like she never worked with Hal and Sondheim.

She was the, the friend who, who like they met because Sondheim knew Hammerstein-

Hm

... and worked with Richard Rodgers after Hammerstein dies, so that's why Mary isn't really connected because it's based-

But I found it interesting to say, actually, if you want to take the arts connection to Sondheim's gaming mind back, you can actually go back to Rodgers and Hammerstein, take it back to Carousel for something that actually never did happen.

That's right, Stephen Sondheim has said that his first contribution to the American musical was for the opening of the second act of the show, where at the time, if you don't know his history, Stephen Sondheim's parents had been divorced, he lived with his mom out in Pennsylvania, and his mom lived there in part so they could be close to the family of Oscar and Hammerstein.

And Oscar Hammerstein kind of became like a father figure to him and also introduced him to many aspects of games and puzzles and must have understood and appreciated that Stephen Sondheim liked treasure hunts.

And so Hammerstein, working with Rogers, asked Sondheim to design a treasure hunt to open the picnic that was going to be the beginning or the clam bake.

That's the beginning of the second act.