{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Podcast 733: Sondheim@90","description":"Today is the 90th birthday of our greatest living composer of Broadway musicals, Stephen Sondheim. His career has spanned the past sixty odd Broadway seasons, during which he wrote or co-wrote many of the most important, influential and successful shows in history. He collaborated on two classics as lyricist \u2013 first with Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story \u2013 1957) and then Jule Styne (Gypsy \u2013 1959), before creating A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, his first work of both music and lyrics. He struggled to find continued success for the rest of the Sixties, producing the admired Anyone Can Whistle, but no real hits. From 1970 on, he worked with producer Harold Prince on a series of innovative musicals that made him a legend \u2013 the hits Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) and the unsuccessful Merrily We Roll Along (1981). With James Lapine as a collaborator, he rebounded with three more classics: Sunday in the Park With George (1984) which won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Into the Woods (1987) and Passion (1994).  He wrote the music for two Warren Beatty movies, Reds and Dick Tracey, the latter of which won him an Academy Award. Since then, he has only sporadically produced new work for the New York stage, most notably Assassins (1990 \u2013 Broadway debut 2004). COVID-19 notwithstanding, his musicals West Side Story, Assassins and Company are all expected to be running in New York this season, In all, Sondheim has won eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy awards, an Oscar and even an Edgar award for Best Mystery Novel for The Last of Sheila, which he co-write with his friend Anthony Perkins. While Broadway songs have been the basis for the Great American Songbook, Sondheim\u2019s work, save for the omnipresent \u201cSend In the Clowns\u201d has often been overlooked by jazz musicians. He has been accused of failing to write \u201chummable tunes\u201d and working with harmonies that do not lend themselves to improvisation. Recent recordings of his work by jazz musicians, most notably Cyrille Aimee\u2019s Move On \u2013 A Sondheim Adventure in 2019, show that this may well be changing, and we can look forward to more interpretations in the future. Podcast 733 is my birthday tribute to Stephen Sondheim, featuring jazz versions of some of my favorite Sondheim compositions, including: Grover Washington, Jr. \u2013 \u201cEvery Day a Little Death\u201d \u2013 A Little Night Music Melissa Errico \u2013 \u201cChildren and Art\u201d \u2013 Sunday in the Park With George Sean Jones, Orrins Evans, Luques Curtis, Obed Calvaire  - \u201cNot While I\u2019m Around\u201d - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Cyrille Aimee \u2013 \u201cWith So Little to Be Sure of\u201d - Anyone Can Whistle Jim Hall \u2013 \u201cWhat Can You Lose?\u201d- Dick Tracey Sarah Vaughan \u2013 \u201cSend In the Clowns\u201d - A Little Night Music Herbie Hancock \u2013 \u201cColor and Light\u201d \u2013 Sunday in the Park With George Dianne Reeves \u2013 \u201cI Remember\u201d \u2013 Evening Primrose Trotter Trio \u2013 \u201cBroadway Baby\u201d \u2013 Follies Nancy Wilson and Terence Blanchard \u2013 \u201cAnyone Can Whistle\u201d \u2013 Anyone Can Whistle Wayne Shorter and Holly Cole \u2013 \u201cLosing My Mind\u201d \u2013 Follies Tierney Sutton Band \u2013 \u201cSomewhere\u201d \u2013 West Side Story ","author_name":"Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show","author_url":"http:\/\/straightnochaserjazz.libsyn.com","html":"