Kander and Ebb

The World Goes ’Round by John Kander and Fred Ebb

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Courtyard Theatre, 1995

John Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1927. He received a BA from Oberlin College in Ohio and an MA in musical composition from Columbia University in 1954. After service in the Merchant Marines he worked variously as a conductor, pianist, composer and dance arranger. His debut as a composer on Broadway was A Family Affair in 1962 which lasted only six performances.

Fred Ebb was born in New York in 1936. He received a BA from New York University, then an MA in English Literature from Columbia University in 1957. He then wrote satire for various nightclub revues and television. He wrote lyrics for Morning Sun, an Off-Broadway musical which closed after eight performances.

In 1962, the two were introduced to each other by Kander’s publisher Tommy Valando. Their first successful collaboration was My Coloring Book, a song originally recorded by Sandy Stewart which was also a hit for Barbra Streisand.

A year later they wrote another hit for Barbra Streisand, ‘I Don’t Care Much’. They also wrote the musical Golden Gate, which was supposed to open in San Francisco on the 57th anniversary of the earthquake. Sadly, it never did.

Flora, the Red Menace, a musical satire on 1930s radicals and Greenwich Village Bohemianism, opened in 1965. This production introduced Liza Minnelli to Broadway, and included the song ‘A Quiet Thing’. Although it only ran for eighty-seven performances, it inspired the producer Harold Prince to commission them to work on his new musical production Cabaret. This opened in 1966 and told the story of an American nightclub singer in Berlin at the end of the Weimar years before World War II and included the title song ‘Cabaret’. It was a critical and box office success running for 1,166 performances on Broadway, then toured America and Europe. The production won a Tony and the Drama Critics’ Award for Best Musical, Kander won Composer of the Year and the cast recording won a Grammy.

The following year, Ebb produced a television spectacular showcasing the songs of Kander and Ebb and the talents of Liza Minnelli, entitled Liza With a Z, which included the song ‘Ring Them Bells’. This musical extravaganza won an Emmy and the soundtrack won a Grammy.

In 1968 they returned to Broadway with two very different musicals. The Happy Time told the story of a French-Canadian family. It ran for 285 performances on Broadway and included the songs ‘The Happy Time’ and ‘I Don’t Remember You’. The second was Zorba, based on the bestselling novel Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. It ran for 304 performances on Broadway and the songs included ‘Only Love’. For both of these productions Kander carefully studied and recreated the traditional music of each setting.

Their next Broadway musical was 70, Girls, 70, which opened in 1971. It told the unusual story of a group of female septuagenarians in Manhattan who become shoplifters to alleviate their boredom. It included the songs ‘Yes’ and ‘Coffee in a Cardboard Cup’. The original production ran for just 36 performances.

Early 1972 saw the release of the big screen version of Cabaret starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey. Kander and Ebb wrote several new songs specially for this version including ‘Maybe This Time’ and ‘Money, Money’, and not only was it a spectacular box office success, it won several Oscars including Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey) and Best Director (Bob Fosse). In the same year Ebb produced a television special for Frank Sinatra called Ol’ Blue Eyes is Back.

Their next Broadway production was the musical Chicago in 1975. Set in the Roaring Twenties, a time when the eponymous city was notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden, it tells a tale of murder and its consequences. The songs included ‘All That Jazz’, ‘Class’, ‘Mr Cellophane’ and ‘Me and My Baby’. This show ran to 923 performances on Broadway and then toured.

In this year they also contributed five new songs to Funny Lady, the film sequel to Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand including the title song ‘Funny Lady’ and ‘Isn’t This Better’.

For the next few years their work covered various media. In 1976 they wrote the songs for A Matter of Time, a musical film starring Liza Minnelli. They wrote 2 by 5, a musical cabaret which showcased a selection of classic Kander and Ebb collaborations, and Ebb co-produced Gypsy in My Soul, a television special for Shirley MacLaine which won an Emmy. In 1977 they contributed to the score for New York, New York a film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro. The songs included the anthemic ‘New York, New York’, ‘And the World Goes ’ Round’ and ‘There Goes the Ball Game’. In the same year they also wrote The Act, a one-woman show telling the story of a nightclub singer (based on New York, New York). This included the song ‘Arthur in the Afternoon’. In 1980 Kander wrote music for the film Kramer Vs Kramer and Ebb produced two television specials: Goldie (Hawn) and Liza Together and Baryshnikov on Broadway.

In 1981 they returned to the musical stage with Woman of the Year. It tells the story of the relationship between a TV news commentator and a cartoonist, and includes the songs ‘Sometimes a Day Goes By’ and ‘The Grass is Always Greener’.

The production starred Lauren Bacall and subsequently Raquel Welch and Debbie Reynolds, ran for 771 performances on Broadway, and won four Tony Awards. In 1982 Kander composed the music for the film Still of the Night. In 1984 the two collaborated again on a Broadway musical The Rink. This was a story about the relationship between a mother who owns a roller-skating rink and her estranged daughter. The songs included ‘The Rink’, ‘Colored Lights’, ‘Marry Me’ and ‘We Can Make It’.

Their work in the nineties has included Kiss of the Spider Woman, a musical version of Manuel Puig’s novel about the relationship that develops between two inmates in a South American prison. The ultimate accolade came from Broadway in the shape of The World Goes ’Round, a musical tribute to their thirty years at the top.