<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">In a message dated 3/19/03 8:32:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, barbonestreet@earthlink.net writes:<BR>
<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Gawd, those cats were HOT!! And the girls weren't bad either! :~) I've<BR>
seen it twice, and plan on seeing<BR>
it again as soon as I can catch my breath!<BR>
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
<BR>
I saw Chicago last week and was genuinely surprised that my wife insisted that we see it. Thank God, I didn't make the suggestion. My initial reaction was mild...I had hoped for a reenactment of what the early days of Chicago (the jazz history lesson) really was. Given that expectation, I would have preferred to see blacks have the majority of performer parts (I'm remembering a photo of Frankie "Half-Pint" Jackson performing in a club with a bevy of black female hoofers in the foreground.) I had expected to see more of the Mafia influence on the nightclub commerce. I really would have loved to hear some authentic music of the time played by today's dwindling-numbers black traditionalists like Winton Marsailes or the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band. There is a young rag player in Chicago, Reginald Robinson, who could have played the black male piano man with real stride music. BUT...<BR>
<BR>
The show was written as a modern piece using the 1920's Chicago motif. It was not meant to be a recreation, but an interpretation. It was meant to appeal to people for its artistic content and I too, will have to watch it again....this time with a fresh mind. There were many skillful scenes and set designs to suggest its time and place. The parallity of the show theme and the dramatic theme was the stuff of dreams that seem so very realistic when we awaken we want to tell someone about the dream, but the transitions seem to confound our conscious ability to describe them. Thanks to all who contributed to this discussion. It took me a while, but I concur with Jim Beebee who led the proponent's salvo.<BR>
<BR>
<P ALIGN=CENTER></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SCRIPT" FACE="Comic Sans MS" LANG="0">Bud Taylor<BR>
<B>Smugtown Stompers</B><BR>
Rochester, NY<BR>
Traditional Jazz since 1958</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
</P></FONT></HTML>