TinDrumJames Caig on the Threepenny Opera
'on the very night the new song was first performed, in 1928, this most mechanical of instruments broke down. In place of the thin, dark, eerie sound that should have emitted from the contraption of crank, pipes and bellows on the stage, the theatre orchestra stepped in to improvise from the pit. And in those days, in that licentious, decadent Weimar moment, ‘orchestra’ meant jazz band...What should have been murder ballad street-scene to introduce a dark and murderous character called Mackie Messer, was instead backed by the sound of modernism, the mania and rhythmic dazzle of jazz'
#jazz #weimar #berlin #mackieMesser #BertoldBrecht #musicalTheatre #history
