April 12, 1996 • Page Image 77
…W ithout them, there would've been no West Side Story and no soundtrack to Woody Allen's Manhattan. Jazz and blues might've remained forever outside the pop mainstream. Broad- way, perhaps, would have died out in the late 1920s, as audiences grew weary of frivolous musical comedies, and turned to movies and baseball instead. The careers of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Ella Fitzgerald would've been infinitely duller, if not appre- ciably short...…

















































