John Kander (b.
1927)
and
Fred Ebb (1935-2004)
Excerpt from New York, New York signed by
John Kander and Fred Ebb
ABOUT THE COMPOSER AND
LYRICIST
John Kander
Composer, born March 18, 1927, Kansas
City, Missouri
Fred Ebb
Lyricist, born April 8, 1935, New York,
New York; died September 11, 2004
Kander and Ebb have been one of the greatest songwriting
teams on Broadway. In fact, the team of Kander and Ebb is the longest-running
music-and-lyrics
partnership in Broadway musical history.
In 1956, John Kander started his musical career as
pianist for The Amazing Adele, during its pre-Broadway run and for An Evening
with Beatrice Lillie in Florida. It wasn’t long before he was preparing dance
arrangements for the musicals Irma la Douce and Gypsy. In
1962, he made his Broadway debut as a composer. The musical was A Family Affair. It
was that same year that Kander met Fred Ebb.
Ebb had been a writer for nightclub material. He also
wrote a television show called, That Was the Week That Was. When Ebb and Kander
met, they instantly complimented each other’s abilities.
Their first success, the song, My Coloring Book,
came the same year. In 1966, their first major success—Cabaret—had a
run of 1,166 performances and won the Tony Award as the season's best musical.
Kander and Ebb’s other musicals / scores include:
The Happy Time (1968)
Zorba (1968)
70 Girls 70
Chicago (1975).
[Film version of
Chicago
in 2003 won the Academy
Award for Best Picture.]
The Act (1978)
The Rink (1984)
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993)
Steel Pier (1997)
The Skin of Our Teeth
Woman of the Year (1981)
Funny Lady (1975)
As a team they wrote successfully for films and for
singers like Barbra Streisand, Lauren Bacall, Joel Grey, Gwen Verdon, Frank Sinatra,
Robert Goulet, and Chita Rivera. They are best remembered for the title song for the
1977 film
musical New York, New York, starring Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro. It became
their biggest hit since Cabaret. Their song, New York, New York, replaced
Leonard Bernstein's song with the same title as the unofficial theme song for New York
City.
In December 1998, John Kander and Fred Ebb were honored
with lifetime achievement awards at the 21st Kennedy Center honors. Pictured
above are President Bill Clinton and to his right, the honorees for the evening: Shirley
Temple Black, André Previn, Fred Ebb, John Kander, and Bill Cosby. (A photo by Ron Edmonds
(AP) appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Monday, December 7, 1998.)
Fred Ebb died of a heart attack at his home in New York on September 11,
2004.
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