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New York, New York
John Kander and Fred Ebb’s music, including the scores they wrote for Broadway shows like “Cabaret,” “Chicago” and “Curtains,” have won four Tony Awards, two Grammys, two Emmys — and named a street after them in the Times. . square Yet Kander, now 96, is not at all interested in all the hero worship. “I don’t relate to that,” he said on “Sunday Morning.” “I really don’t, just like I don’t relate to the fact that we’re sitting here doing some sort of televised interview.”
David Pogue noted, “You’re now the longest-running Broadway composer in history.”
“I think it’s weird!” Kander replied. “I really don’t feel any different than the insecure man you met all those years ago.”
Yes, Pogue worked with Kander in 1987, when he played piano for Kander and Ebb’s Off-Broadway show, “Flora, the Red Menace.”
The composer has always said that his music writes itself: “Music plays in my head all the time, even when we’re having this conversation,” he said. “If I put my hands on the keyboard, they’ll do something.”
which they did.
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Pogue asked, “So, you’re composing right now? That’s the new thing?”
“Yeah. That doesn’t mean it’s any good. It’s okay!” She laughed.
For 45 years, Kander has written music, and Eb has written songs. “Freddie and I were such different people,” Kander said, “and yet, when we got into a room to work, it all went away and we became one.”
Fred Ebb died in 2004. And yet, a new Kander and Ebb musical opens on Broadway this week. It is based very loosely on the 1977 film “New York, New York,” for which Kander and Ebb wrote five songs. For this new show, David Thompson co-wrote the screenplay, and Susan Stroman is the director and choreographer. They, like Pogue, worked together in 1987’s “Flora, The Red Menace.” “We all look alike!” Strowman smiled.
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I came here with nothing,
Like hundreds before me,
And millions behind me…
The musical is set in 1947, and tells five intimate stories about aspiring musicians. “We wanted to celebrate artists who come to New York to change their lives, to be the best at what they do,” Stroman said.
“It was just after the war; New York was optimistic,” he said. “People were pulling plywood out of storefronts. There’s something about that particular time that feels like New York time. You know, we’re going to bring this city back to where it was.”
Some songs are from movies (including “Happy Endings” and “But the World Goes ‘Round”); some never-before-heard Kander and Ebb songs (including “A Simple Thing Like That” and “I’m What’s Happening Now”); And some of the new songs have lyrics or additional songs by another famous Broadway talent: Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of “In the Heights” and “Hamilton.”
She saw an early draft of “New York, New York”: “I was just blown away by the show, a beautiful love letter to New York,” Miranda said. “I just said, ‘Anything else you need, like, please let me know.'”
“For which we are not sorry!” Kander smiled.
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Miranda described her job as “being as fast as him and just, you know, beating him.”
A new song, “Can You Hear Me?” Set in Grand Central’s Whispering Arch, it’s an architectural satire that lets you hear a whisper from 30 feet away:
When I heard your song, everything changed
can you hear me
Can you ever live with a wreck like me?
can you hear me
Can I ever be part of your heart’s song?
As for the song … we all know as “New York, New York” it’s not the first version written by Kander & Ebb in 1977. Movie star Robert De Niro didn’t like their original song, and asked them to try again “some actor telling us how to write a song?!” Kander shouted. “Anyway, we went to the piano, and the first thing that happened at the piano, I had nothing in my head, was (the vamp). And inside that vamp was, start spilling out… and so we wrote that song in 45 minutes—I think in part. Because we were so bored!”
Their second attempt became world famous.
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But Kander says he doesn’t understand all the fuss. “I heard that audience roar last night when that song happened,” he said. “I just don’t understand it.
“Here’s what I understand: I understand making stuff and making things with your friends. I understand that after a while, you’re going to make something that you love. And that spark inside you when that happens is like Something that no one can take away from you.”
Click on the video player below to preview the new Broadway musical “New York, New York”:
New York, New York: A new trailer for the New York, New York Broadway musical on YouTube
For more information:
Story produced by Kay Lim. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
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