Experiencing Broadway Music by Kat Sherrell

Author:Kat Sherrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hair 2009 Broadway Revival Cast Album

There are few experiences on par with sitting outside on a summer evening with thousands of people watching a show that celebrates life and love. The New York Shakespeare Festival production moved indoors to Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre in spring 2009, along with most of its cast and creative team. The cast album released later that year is an excellent vehicle to take you back to that lovely evening, which in turn transported you to 1967. Often described as plotless, Hair contains many songs that are more “be-ing” than “do-ing.” Unlike the plotless musical comedies described in chapters 2 and 3, however, Hair uses its short songs to develop its characters, known collectively as the Tribe, and the world they live in, sometimes suspending space, time, and other conventional theatrical boundaries to do so. The structure of Hair may elude the casual listener, but a closer examination reveals how the sequence of apparently abstract songs draws the audience progressively deeper into the world of the Tribe. This chance to experience what the score describes as “the fluid-abstract world of the 1960’s as seen by, for, and about the ‘Flower Children’ of the period” was an important foothold for a 1960s audience, most of whom weren’t hippies and may have had mixed or negative feelings about the counterculture.

The show opens with the band onstage and members of the Tribe mingling with the audience. The interactive group dynamic in Hair is thematic, speaking to the communal values of the hippies. Though some characters are more prominent, Hair is really an ensemble show, with the Tribe joining in as a group on almost every song. The group dynamic is also crucial in the band: unlike most Broadway shows in which each instrumental part is fully written and played note for note, the band parts for Hair leave much more room for improvisation, and details are determined between the music director and band for each production. Galt MacDermot himself led the band for the original production. The 2009 revival, music directed by Nadia DiGiallonardo, features big-time session musicians Wilbur Bascomb and Bernard Purdie on bass and drums, respectively, as well as Hair composer’s son Vincent MacDermot on trombone. Rounded out by guitarists Steve Bargonetti and Andrew Schwartz, percussionists Joe Cardello and Erik Charlston, trumpeters Elaine Burt, Ronald Buttacavoli, and Christian Jaudes, and Allen Won on reeds, each player in the band is at the top of his or her game, both technically and within the musical styles of the show.

The deep, funky groove of “Aquarius” solidifies out of the ambient electric guitar and percussion sounds that start off the album. In the early 1960s, celestial bodies aligned in a way that astrologers believe heralded a new age, the Age of Aquarius, ruled by peace and love. “Aquarius” acts as a call to the Tribe to gather onstage, and they sing together about “harmony and understanding.” With its positive lyrics, “Aquarius” invites an audience that may or may not share

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