Bobby Sanabria's Multiverse Big Band's West Side Story Reimagined will be performed live at McCarter in Princeton, NJ on October 4.
WBGO's Doug Doyle chats with Jamie Bernstein, daughter of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein about why he would have loved to have heard Sanabria's score. Bobby Sanabria and McCarter's Paula Abreu also talk about the exciting event.
Jamie Bernstein says her father's love of Latin Caribbean music continued to grow over many years.
"West Side Story is already so exciting rhythmically and melodically. My dad was so besotted with those Caribbean rhythms. He just couldn't get enough them. He also was equally besotted with jazz. The moment he was writing West Side Story he was really in love with Bebop jazz. He wound up braiding together these various genres of music that neither of which you would expect in a Broadway pit and created this score that didn't sound like anything that came before. Somethings have sounded like it a little later but not really quite the same. So when it came to the oldest Latin Caribbean music, he just couldn't use enough of those dance rhythms that he discovered very early in his life when he was in Key West Florida and heard the Havana radio station coming right over the water and into his radio in Key West. That was the beginning of the love affair for him. He took it very far from that early starting point."
Jamie Bernstein was in the audience when West Side Story Reimagined was recorded live at Dizzy's Club in NYC. She has great respect for Sanabria's work on her father's original composition.
"My dad would have loved it."
Bobby Sanabria says the album West Side Story Reimagined double CD and 16-page booklet is really a commemorative work.
"The album celebrates not only when we recorded it my 60th birthday but also the 60th anniversary of the show. For Jamie to be there at the session, it's a testimony to the musicianship of the members of my orchestra."
McCarter's director of special programming Paula Abreu is excited about kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month with that many times and I'm so proud to bring it to McCarter. I think our audiences who follow theater and audiences that follow jazz and the music programs will both love it."
You can SEE the entire interview below.
