CDs: Gotta Dance

Although the record books sometimes tell us that The Pajama Game and Peter Pan both in '54 were the first shows that Jerome Robbins directed as well as choreographed, the program billing for Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! 1948 indicates otherwise. For this lightweight show about and dominated by dance, the credits read "direction and choreography by George Abbott and Jerome Robbins." That's in addition to the line on the title page which states that the musical was "conceived by Jerome Robbins."

Produced by Abbott as a vehicle for his Best Foot Forward/On the Town star comic Nancy Walker, Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! was suggested by Robbins' own experiences touring with Ballet Theatre. Robbins and his future West Side Story/Gypsy collaborator, Arthur Laurents, began work on the book, but it was soon turned over to Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the team that would go on to Auntie Mame, Mame, Inherit the Wind, and Shangri-La.

The action of Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! was set during a cross-country tour of the fictional Russo-American Ballet Company, with Walker playing a brewery heiress underwriting the tour in hopes of getting to dance with the company. The leading man was Harold Lang, who had danced Robbins' ballet Fancy Free the inspiration for On the Town with Ballet Theatre. Lang would follow Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! with Kiss Me, Kate later the same year.

Music and lyrics were the work of Hugh Martin. With Ralph Blane, Martin had collaborated on Meet Me in St. Louis and Best Foot Forward. Martin would go on to compose the full score for Make a Wish, and, with Timothy Gray, the scores for Love from Judy in London and High Spirits.

With Walker, Abbott, and Robbins, Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! was something of an On the Town reunion, and the show opened on January 29, 1948 at On the Town's Adelphi later the 54th Street Theatre. There seemed to be agreement that, in addition to Walker's uproarious antics, the show's highlights were its three ballet sequences, "Mademoiselle Marie" with Herbert Ross and Tommy Rall in the corps, a sleepwalking/pajama ballet, and a "Swan Lake" pas de deux.

During the run, Walker experienced vocal problems that forced her to miss performances. Oddly enough, the sub was Walker's sister, Betty Lou Barto. Abbott blamed the show's foreshortened run on Walker's absences. Although it managed to become a financial success, Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! played only 188 performances.

Owing to the threat of a musician's strike, the cast album for Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! was recorded during rehearsals. Because of this, the recording varies significantly from what was heard on Broadway. Bill Shirley, who sings "Tiny Room" and "If You'll Be Mine" the latter a duet with Walker on the recording, left the show before it opened in New York. Sandra Deel remained in the show, but the two numbers she sings on the album --"The Little Boy Blues" performed with composer Martin and "Shauny O'Shay"-- were delivered in the show by Don Liberto and Virginia Gorski later Virginia Gibson, as in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Happy Hunting. "I'm Not So Bright" is performed on the recording by Lang, who only danced it in the show, where it was sung by Loren Welch, who also inherited Shirley's "Tiny Room."

The Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! cast album was originally issued as four Decca 78s eight numbers, later issued as a Decca ten-inch LP, and still later became one side of a Columbia Special Products LP paired with Arms and the Girl. On the recording, Lang, who was a fine singer in addition to being a top-notch dancer, has a zesty opener, "Gotta Dance." That's followed by Walker's fine introductory number, "I'm the First Girl."

Lang's other number is the attractive ballad "I'm Not So Bright," while Walker also has the amusing "I'm Tired of Texas" and the catchy, upbeat duet "If You'll Be Mine." Also quite nice is the "Little Boy Blues" Deel-Martin duet.

With Look, Ma added to its recent releases of Mexican Hayride and Texas, Li'l Darlin', Decca Broadway is to be commended for putting out on CD its shorter cast albums, the sort of thing that could easily have slipped through the cracks. But unlike Mexican Hayride or Texas, Look, Ma has acquired new tracks with its first CD release. In addition to the eight original numbers, there are two never-before-issued cast-album tracks. These were obviously left in the can because both songs, "Let's Do a Ballet" and "Horrible, Horrible Love," were cut from the show, at some point between the recording and the Broadway opening. The melodies of both songs later went into Martin's Make a Wish score: The tune of "Let's Do a Ballet" became Nanette Fabray's opening number, "I Wanna Be Good," and "Horrible, Horrible Love"'s tune was used for the verse of "Who Gives a Sou?"

The inclusion of these new tracks, both of which feature Walker, makes this a major release, and that's not all. You also get alternate takes of Lang's "Gotta Dance" and Deel's "Shauny O'Shay." In both cases, the version featured on the original 78s was a different take from the one used on the subsequent Decca and Columbia LP versions. And there are interesting new notes by ninety-year-old Martin in which he discusses each track, including such fascinating information as the admission that the melody of the haunting "Tiny Room" is "The Boy Next Door" upside down.

A final note about other Look, Ma recordings: An eight-minute version of Trude Rittman's dance music for the act-one-finale ballet "Mademoiselle Marie" is to be found on the Ben Bagley-Lehman Engel disc Ballet on Broadway. In 2000, Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! got a second recording, featuring the cast of a Musicals Tonight! off-off-Broadway revival, with Jennifer Allen and Noah Racey among the company. It includes "Horrible, Horrible Love" plus four other songs "Jazz," "The New Look," "All My Life," "The Two of Us" not on the Broadway cast album.