None of that should distract from the fact that Styne is one of musical theater’s finest composers. His work, and that of his collaborators, is celebrated in this week’s new episode of Lyrics and Lyricists: Preludes from New York’s 92nd Street Y. The show is called Jule Styne and His Many Lyricists. It begins streaming on December 7th and will remain available through December 31st.

The lyricists with whom Styne worked include Bob Merrill (Funny Girl), Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Bells Are Ringing, Do Re Mi, Subways Are For Sleeping, Fade Out – Fade In), Leo Robin (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and Stephen Sondheim (Gypsy).

Performing in this show will be Farah Alvin (It Shoulda Been You), Allison Blackwell (Pretty Woman: The Musical), Nikki Renée Daniels (the postponed revival of Company), Jeff Kready (A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder), Julia Murney (Wicked), Zachary Noah Piser (Dear Evan Hansen), Zachary Prince (Honeymoon in Vegas), Pearl Sun (Come From Away) and Mariand Torres (In Transit). Beth Malone (Angels in America) narrates. Paul Masse created the series and serves as musical director.

Every episode of this series has been entertaining, informative and at times emotional. Tickets are $15 per episode or you can get access to all five shows for $60. All episodes are now going to be available through December 31st. I strongly recommend checking them out.

Photo: Composer Jule Styne with Stephen Sondheim (Photo by Friedman-Abeles/Courtesy New York Public Library Archives)

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There are five programs in Lyrics & Lyricists: Preludes. All five will begin at 7:00 PM ET/4:00 PM PT.

October 26th: George Gershwin – Bidin’ My Time

Songs written by George and Ira Gershwin will be performed amidst excerpts from letters between the two brothers, archival interviews and other correspondence from friends like pianist Oscar Levant (An American in Paris) and Kay Swift.

The songs will include Embraceable You and Our Love Is Here to Stay. The performers will be Farah Alvin, Allison Blackwell, James T. Lane, Kara Lindsay and Zachary Prince.

November 9th: Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt: Simple Little Things

The longest running musical in history is the Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt musical The Fantasticks. The little off-Broadway show opened in 1960 and ran for 17,162 performances before finally closing on January 13, 2002. The musical introduced to the world the song Try to Remember.

Their other shows include 110 in the Shade (which debuted on Broadway in 1963 and was most recently revived in 2007 with Audra McDonald), 1966’s I Do! I Do! (a two-character musical that opened with Mary Martin and Robert Preston) and 1969’s Celebration.

November 23rd: Rodgers, Rodgers, and Guettel: Statues and Stories

This is a true family affair part of Broadway. Richard Rodgers, best known for his collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II was composer Mary Rodgers’ father. She was Adam Guettel’s mother.

Richard Rodgers is known for the musicals On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, Pal Joey, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music (and that’s a partial list).

Mary Rodgers is best known for Once Upon a Mattress and had songs/music featured in From A to Z, Working, The Madwoman of Central Park West and Side By Side by Sondheim.

Of Sondheim, he has said that the most autobiographical song he’s ever written is Opening Doors from Merrily We Roll Along which reflects how he, Harold Prince and Mary Rodgers all embarked on careers in the theatre.

Adam Guettel is the Tony Award-winning composer of The Light in the Piazza. He wrote the incidental music for the Broadway production of To Kill a Mockingbird. He’s also the creator of the song cycle Myths and Hymns and the musical Floyd Collins.

December 7th: Jule Styne and His Many Lyricists: Distant Melody

Many composers find the perfect lyricist and stick with them throughout the bulk of their career. Jule Styne, a two-time Tony Award winner, was the composer of such shows as Gypsy, Funny Girl, Do Re Mi, Subways Are For Sleeping and Hallelujah Baby! (His Tony Awards came for Hallelujah Baby). And he had many lyricists throughout his career.

His lyricists includied Sammy Cahn, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Bob Merrill, Leo Rubin and Stephen Sondheim.

Though he didn’t win a Tony for Gypsy or Funny Girl, those two shows remain his most important musicals and the most celebrated.

December 14th: The Theme From…: Songs Written for Film

Many of the songs we cherish today were introduced to us in the films for which they were written. It’s a list that includes The Way We Were, Moon River, Over the Rainbow, The ManThat Got Away and The Windmills Of Your Mind.

The songs being performed and discussed in this show haven’t been released, but count on many of the most popular songs from movies to be included.

In addition to the announced performers for Bidin’ My Time, the talent line-up the subsequent shows will feature Nikki Renée Daniels, Katherine Henley, Jeff Kready, Telly Leung, Paul Masse, Julia Murney, Zachary Noah Pisner, Pearl Sun and Mariand Torres.

This series is perfect for those who both want to hear the work of these amazing songwriters, but also want a deeper dive into the creators themselves.

Tickets for individual shows are $15 or you can purchase all 5 for $60.

Photo: Adam Guettel (Courtesy AdamGuettel.com)

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I recently spoke with Charlap about Bernstein, his collaboration with Salvant and his family’s Peter Pan overlap with Bernstein.

How have your arrangements of Bernstein’s work from 14 years ago held up in your opinion?

They have grown a great deal. Just like the trio or a family or relationship will grow. We are always playing the music every night in a new way. We try to approach it like it’s the first time we’ve ever played it.  The ability to really have a conversation all the time and reassess what we are doing, to renegotiate a line or rhythmic phrase, before you get to the end of it, is one of the great joys of jazz. As Sondheim says, “God is in the details.” It’s all in the details. I think it’s grown a great deal.

What appeals to you most about Bernstein and his work?

I love Leonard Bernstein the theatre composer because it is all about the melodies and melody-driven music. And I love his perspective on popular theatre and music writing. He came from the other side of the track. He was writing classical music before he wrote a popular song. As opposed to George Gershwin who went the other way. There’s a big connection between Gershwin and Bernstein. And Bernstein amalgamates a lot of the things he really loves in his music. You hear Aaron Copland and Stravinsky and Gershwin. You certainly hear all those things in Bernstein’s music.

Are there Bernstein songs or compositions that you didn’t record for that album that are now part of your repertoire?

I have certainly done other Bernstein concerts where we added more of the dance music from the gym (from West Side Story), like the “Mambo” and songs like “I Feel Pretty” which Cécile sings so beautifully. There are lots of others like “New York, New York” and “Wrong Note Rag.” I’m not certain I’m going to play them out there. I haven’t 100% decided on all of it yet. We’re going to make it a collaboration, so it will be the two of us, Cécile and I, making the decisions about how to approach the songs.

What makes Cécile McLorin Salvant not just a great singer, but a great collaborator for you?

She is a supreme musician. She is as great as any maestro on the scene. We don’t feel like we are playing and accompanying a singer, we’re with another musician. She has the taste and knowledge and the history of music and her own imprint and the ability to listen and react. She is surefire, but absolutely willing to take chances. And warmth and personality and she gives herself to the music. She’s just got all those things. The essence of the sound of jazz is all throughout her music.

Your father, Mark “Moose” Charlap, wrote the music for the best-known musical version of Peter Pan. Leonard Bernstein also wrote a musical version of Peter Pan that pre-dates your father’s by four years. Why do you think your father’s show became the one that audiences embraced?

Well, my father was really a songwriter with a capital “S” and a theatre writer. If you think about a song like “I Won’t Grow Up,” that’s pop music with a capital “P.” Everyone can remember and sing it. It’s music for everybody and it is childlike. He was 26 years old and he loved children. He wanted to connect in that sort of way. Bernstein’s Peter Pan, which is wonderful, is a bit more Brechtian. You listen to Boris Karloff being Captain Hook and it’s so different than Cyril Ritchard being Hook. Moose’s music and Carolyn Leigh, Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s lyrics have a childlike quality that is so tuneful and natural.

Bernstein once said that “The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning.” If that’s so, how did so much great music come from Bernstein himself as a response? And what would you say the 21st century has been so far?

That’s an awfully big question. Ultimately it is about being yourself. An artist being themselves, if they have something to say that is original, is going to contribute something original and I love beautiful things. Sometimes out of some of the greatest pain and challenge comes some of the most beauty – thus jazz in the first place. This is music that comes from the African-American experience in America. It belongs to everybody, but that’s its genesis. It’s one of the great struggles and we’re still grappling with that kind of lack of true understanding of each other’s worth. I mean that for every “ism” and every individual sect that we have and everybody who deserves the honor of being a human being. And being a human being is to have creative potential. I don’t care what you are or who you are, you have creative potential and the ability to reach God’s universe.

Photo Credit: Carol Friedman

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