The John Wilson Orchestra: “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” from the 1936 Rodgers & Hart & Balanchine Musical, On Your Toes; Arranged by Don Walker (Video)

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Never heard this piece of music before—though the name sounds vaguely familiar—and never heard of The John Wilson Orchestra. I tried a youtube upload of the first record of it by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, but found it not only acoustically poor, but the arrangement uninspiring. This is sensational. I haven’t seen a conductor work with such verve since Leonard Bernstein in Central Park during his Bicentennial Concert with (I believe) the New York Philharmonic.

The JWO plays its own annual, bbc-sponsored “proms” (originally “promenade concerts”) in the Royal Albert Hall. This is from 2012, when Wilson was about 40.

When Richard Rodgers (1902-1979), who was to become America’s greatest composer, was a boy, his parents sent him off to Jewish summer camp every year. When heRodgers was 16, Lorenz “Larry” Hart (1895-1943) was responsible for entertainment.

At some point, they started making music together. Before you knew it, they were the toast of Broadway. Their shows had an urbane, often jazzy feel to them, which made them less acceptable to Hollywood. Thus, while I know of a number of Rodgers & Hart songs, I know little of their shows, excepting the last one, Pal Joey (1940), which starred a young Gene Kelly, and whose movie version (1957) starred Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, and Kim Novak, with both of the ladies’ voices dubbed. Other big successes included On Your Toes and The Boys from Syracuse.

(Don Walker arranged this piece for the 1954 revival of On Your Toes.)

Around 1940, Rodgers asked Hart how he felt about doing a show set in the 1890s’ Oklahoma Territory. Hart said he didn’t. And that was the end of Rodgers & Hart.

Broadway’s greatest librettist (and America’s greatest poet), Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), was at loose ends, and had nothing against doing a show set in Oklahoma. Thus was Rodgers & Hammerstein born.

Their best shows had non-urban settings, the music often in the form of waltzes.

Hart, who had secretly been in love with Rodgers, drank himself to death.

I grew up on Rodgers & Hammerstein tunes, surely due to the pictures made out of their shows: Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, The King & I, The Sound of Music.