The Pajama Game - The Music
The Pajama Game is brilliantly written to give a perfect balance of style, mood and character. Jerry Ross and Richard Adler shared the music and lyrics - both writing both - (the Sherman brothers are the only other well known team to do so).
The neat way the 'set up' is explained in the first three minutes - mostly through song - is a masterpiece - the factory - the boss - the new superintendent - the union - the dispute with management - the time factor and the comedy are all there. The plot hurries along without stopping to 'spell it out' to the audience. Songs are an integral part of the action, as are the frequent 'voice overs'. The music is as strong a character as the people themselves.
Once again this is a 1954 show, full of parody and pastiche, which gives a clue to the underlying humour of the whole show - why? To poke fun at or to pay tribute to previous musicals? Both! To gently show how musical theatre has moved on growing up from well established roots. As with all good parodies, these songs stand in their own right, but the wit and skill of Adler and Ross show clearly if comparison with the originals is made.
'The Pajama Game' is early Gershwin style, with its oddly-accented word setting.
'Racing with the Clock' copies early Bernstein, with natural across the beat speech rhythms.
'A New Town' is a Frank Loesser pastiche, with the new intervals and discordant harmonies he introduced; it possibly parodies 'My Time of Day' from Guys & Dolls.
'I'll Never be Jealous Again' copies a Vaudeville soft shoe shuffle.
'I'm not at all in Love' and 'Once a Year Day' both mimic Rodgers & Hammerstein's chorus numbers.
'Hey There' is like a Jerome Kern ballad, with its use of triplets and key changes.
'Her Is' is taken from Rodgers & Hart's Mimi.
'Small Talk' copies Irving Berlin's overlapping of slow and fast vocal lines.
'There Once was a Man' [iciks up the raucous Country & Western trend which followed Calamity Jane in 1953 (music by Sammy Fain).
'Steam Heat' with its risque lyrics plays tribute to Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate, where Act II opens with the jazz dance 'Too Darn Hot'.
'Think of the Time I Save' is like a Gilbert & Sullivan comic solo with typical chorus echo.
'Hernando's Hideaway' is the customary tango, such as found in the repertoire of Carmen Miranda.
Two odd ones out: the Sleep Tite Anthem sounds very 'Bier Keller' and 'Seven and a Half Cents' has elements of barber shop mixed with a French folk song.
The Jealousy Ballet is a comment on the Gene Kelly symbolic 'ballet' sequences in most of his films.
A mix of styles and voices - chorus with solos, solos with chorus, duets, dance numbers all brilliantly finished off.
The combined talents of Adler & Ross are a force to be reckoned with. It is tragic that Ross's death in 1956 cut short what promised to be one of the most influential partnerships in the history of musical theatre.
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