Two musicals opened in November 1959 that were surprisingly successful. One was on Broadway while the other was staged Off-Broadway. The first, Fiorello!, was a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who had left office just 14 years earlier and died in 1947. The show's book was by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott (drawn from Life with Fiorello, by Ernest Cuneo) with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock. The musical shocked everyone by winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1960, and Harnick would go on to write the lyrics to Fiddler on the Roof in 1964. The second sleeper musical was Little Mary Sunshine, which opened at the Orpheum Theatre downtown in the East Village before moving to two bigger Off-Broadway theaters and then closing in 1962 after more than 1,000 performances. The show parodied old-fashioned operettas and musicals. The book, music and lyrics were by Rick Besoyan.
In March 1960, pianist Jimmy Rowles recorded Fiorello Uptown/Mary Sunshine Downtown for Signature Records. On the album, he put a jazz spin on the music from the two shows. Rowles was backed smartly by Al Hendrickson (g), Joe Mondragon (b) and Larry Bunker (d,vib).
Signature was a label started by Bob Thiele in 1939 when he was 17. Thiele shuttered the label in the late 1940s but revived it in 1959 to merge it with Hanover, a label owned by TV personality Steve Allen. In 1961, Thiele joined Impulse after the new label's founder and producer Creed Taylor left to head Verve. Thiele would become best known at Impulse for recording saxophonist John Coltrane extensively in the 1960s during his free-jazz period.
Despite its Broadway theme, the Rowles album was recorded in Los Angeles. It's unclear whose idea it was to have Rowles interpret the music from these two shows and why those two musicals were considered worthy at the time. The Pulitzer Prizes weren't announced until May of 1960, so recording the music two months earlier in March had nothing to do with Fiorello!'s award. If I had to guess, I'd say the album was Allen's idea, since he was more than likely the one plugged into the Broadway and Off-Broadway scenes and likely saw them both and appreciated the catchy music.
The songs on the album will likely be unfamiliar to most listeners, since the musical numbers never became part of the American songbook. But as we can hear, giving them a jazz spin was a stroke of genius. Rowles is spectacular throughout, deploying sophistication, swing and lyricism. The music is instantly infectious in his hands and those of his sidemen. I'll go so far as to say that Fiorello Uptown/Mary Sunshine Downtown is one of Rowles's finest leadership recordings.
Jimmy Rowles died in 1996.
JazzWax tracks: Fiorello Uptown/Mary Sunshine Downtown is out of print but can be found on a Japanese CD here.
JazzWax clips: Here's Gentleman Jimmy, from Fiorello!...
And here's Do You Ever Dream of Vienna?, from Little Mary Sunshine...
A special thanks to Joe Alterman.
