By Jupiter / Crazy Girl - Jackie Cain & Roy Kral

 

Jupiter Forbid

By Jupiter & Girl Crazy

Jackie Cain & Roy Kral

An Original Presentation Of 2 Broadway Musicals

Hugo & Luigi Producers

Design: Moskof-Morrison, Inc.

Roulette R-25278

1964

From the inside cover: In December, 1930, three minor events took place in major cities of the United States. They were not to be related for many years. The future Mr. and Mrs. Donald Cain of Milwaukee were planning their honeymoon. A kid named Roy Kral was practicing arpeggios at the Sherwood Music School in Chicago. And in New York, the writer of these notes – then a college freshman – was watching a performance of "Girl Crazy" during Christmas vacation.

Mr. and Mrs. Cain became the parents of a beautiful girl now known as Jackie. The kid in Chicago grew really excited about jazz "sounds" after hearing the Benny Goodman Trio. The college boy in New York yearned more and more for a career in the theatre.

Fade out – fade in. I became a Broadway actor. I married Broadway columnist Dorothy Kilgallen. I became a Broadway producer. One night my wife and I went to a nightclub called the Royal Roost to hear saxophonist Charlie Ventura's marvelous combo and we heard something new: Jackie and Roy. We were remarkably impressed and pleased; we have been members of the Jackie and Roy cult since that happy night.

I served my apprenticeship as a producer on "By Jupiter". The veterans at the game were Dwight Deere Wyman and Richard Rodgers, so I had made a resolution to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut, but Dwight was ill through most of the rehearsals and the out-of-town tryouts, and I found myself making suggestions. It is a tribute to Richard Rodgers' patience that he listened to everything and even incorporated a few of my ideas.

I first met Dick and his brilliant partner, Lorenz Hart, when I auditioned for their show "The Boys From Syracuse". The same week I sang for Kurt Weill, Maxwell Anderson and Josh Logan. They were readying "Knickerbocker Holiday". Like a dream come true, I was offered the juvenile lead in both shows. I chose to accept the part of Brom Broek in the Weill-Anderson musical.

A year later, I got a call from the George Abbott office ask- ing if I would be interested in playing the juvenile in Rodgers and Hart's new show "Too Many Girls." I accepted readily and there began a long and rewarding friendship with these two brilliant men.

Dick was the stabilizer of the team. Larry was a warm, kind person, but, to put it mildly, his behavior was erratic at times. On good days, when Larry's fertile imagination was bubbling with fresh ideas and crackling rhymes, he inspired his collaborator to a frenzy of composition.

I was sitting with Dick Rodgers one afternoon, watching Josh Logan direct a scene, when Larry Hart walked down the aisle and sat next to his partner. He handed Dick a piece of paper with some verses scribbled on it.

"What do you think about this for that slow spot toward the end of the first act"? asked Larry. "Bolger and Venuta could do it in one."

Dick smiled – a sure sign of approval from Mr. Rodgers – rose and said to Larry, "Don't leave the theatre."

He went upstairs to a dressing room in the Shubert Theatre, sat down at a rehearsal piano and established what must be the world's speed record in composing. In ten minutes he returned to the auditorium with the lead sheet of "Everything I've Got Belongs To You."

Lorenz Hart always seemed to me to be a very lonely little man. There were several cronies who were around him a lot, but they were obvious "free loaders". Whenever someone with no ulterior motive took time to chat or dine with him, he was excessively, but nevertheless sincerely, grateful.

This possibly could explain his obsession with generosity. He simply would not let anyone pick up a tab whether it be one drink at a bar or dinner for six in a "posh" restaurant. Once, during the Boston tryout of "By Jupiter", I invited him to dinner at the Ritz where we were both staying. After the entree, I excused myself and told the maitre d'hotel to inform all personnel that Mr. Hart was my guest and that I wanted no nonsense about who was to pay the check. The "maitre d'" looked at me imperiously and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kollmar, Mr. Hart spoke to me after the appetizer. I have accepted his gratuity. C'est fini."

Naturally, I have a sentimental attachment to this album, to Jackie and Roy and to the crystal clarity of their taste. They have taken the best of two shows and done wonders.

While the libretto of "By Jupiter" was far better than that of "Girl Crazy", it was a far cry from the adult stories and dialogue of "South Pacific" and "My Fair Lady". So be thankful that Jackie and Roy have done the score their way. You are spared the contrived plots and hackneyed jokes. They have distilled two successful shows to their finest element: the music.

As I recall "Girl Crazy", Ethel Merman was atomic, Willie Howard came on now and then to do block comedy scenes, and Ginger Rogers was a pretty, but inaudible ingenue. From where I was sitting in the second balcony she moved her lips while the orchestra played a lovely tune which the program indicated was "Embraceable You". The way Jackie sings it on this album, you hear every syllable.

In their bouquet of songs from "By Jupiter", Jackie and Roy have included one of the loveliest waltzes ever written – "Wait 'Til You See Her'". Few people realize that this song was cut from the show in Boston because it slowed the second act; Richard Rodgers and director Josh Logan had the courage to dump it, and it never made the Broadway opening night. But it has become a standard because nothing could have kept that lovely light under a bushel. "Careless Rhapsody", which was written as a satire, never quite came off with the audiences because Rodgers and Hart couldn't be that bad. When Jackie and Roy do it as a bossa nova, it becomes truly exciting. Jackie and Roy possess all kinds of magic. Part of it – perhaps the heart of it is their genius for doing new things to old tunes. It is this magic that fills every moment of this recording. – Dick Kollmar

Everything I've Got

Nobody's Heart

Here's A Hand

Careless Rhapsody

Jupiter Forbid

Wait Till You See Him

I Got Rhythm

Embraceable You

Could You Use Me?

Bidin' My Time

But Not For Me

Treat Me Rough