Puttin' on the Ritz

Astaire, on Broadway, in film, on radio, and in accompanying records, introduced many songs that became standards and some of the supreme ones. Highlights from the ‘20s besides “Fascinating Rhythm” include 1927s “S’Wonderful” and “Funny Face” from the musical of the same name also written by the Gershwins. Frankly not the best versions. Fred certainly has skill and style but has yet to incorporate the Jazz revolution in his approach. Adele would never achieve, and likely didn’t attempt, Jazz styling. Her vocals, rather pretentious, with those warbly high notes, insistently on the beat, very much a sound of the time, and the band sounding like a classical orchestra mishmashed with a merry go round carousel, ragtime piano, snatches of Jazz horn, make them recordings for real aficionados of the 20s. A musical turn came for Fred came in 1930 when he made the second recording of Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” a slang expression referencing London’s opulent hotel and getting dressed up for a night on the town. While not written for him, it quickly became Fred’s song with lyrics tailor made for his persona and a unique, staggered, complex, bordering on frenetic rhythm which he handled with aplomb using the sound of his rapid footwork as a sort of instrumental solo aside a hot Jazz horn section. Have you seen the well to do/ Up on Lenox Avenue/ On that famous thoroughfare/ With their noses in the air?/ High hats and narrow collars/ White spats and fifteen dollars/ Spending every dime/ For a wonderful time/ If you’re blue, and you don’t know where to go/ Why don’t you go where Harlem fits?/ Puttin’ on the Ritz. Berlin wrote the original lyrics about black Harlemites, but for the 1946 film Blue Skies he rewrote the characters as white swells strolling Fifth Avenue.

While at first a heartbreaking change that left him feeling bereft as an entertainer, Adele’s retirement freed him to fully transform into the character Fred Astaire. Multi-media superstar. In November of ’32 Fred opened the Broadway production of Gay Divorce highlighted by Cole Porter’s song “Night and Day.” He had already gone into the studio for a concurrent record release. By February over thirty artists had covered the smash hit. It becomes a core part of the Songbook with hundreds of versions and most associated with Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. It’s another unusual song with a 48 bar structure, instead of the standard 32, a rising and descending chord structure with lush resolutions possibly inspired by a Porter visit to Morocco, and a strong rhythmic foundation perfectly suited for Astaire. “Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom/ When the jungle shadows fall/ Like the tick, tick, tick of the stately clock/ As it stands against the wall/ Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops/ When summer shower is through/ So a voice within me keeps repeating/ You, you, you/ Night and day, you are the one/ Only you beneath the moon and under the sun/ Whether near to me or far/ It’s no matter darling where you are/ I think of you night and day.”

1934. The Astaire/Rodgers film runs starts with The Gay Divorcee based on the Broadway show. 1935. They star in the film Top Hat. Fred had an amazing solo tap dance he choreographed for a Ziegfeld revue. He worked with Berlin to base the song “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails” on the routine and use that song as the basis for the movie. “Nothing now could take the wind out of my sails/ Because I’m invited to step out this evening / With top hat, white tie and tails/ I’m puttin’ on my top hat/ Tyin’ up my white tie/ Brushing’ off my tails/ I’m dudin’ up my shirt front/ Puttin’ in the shirt studs/ Polishin’ my nails/ I’m stepping out, my dear to breathe/ An atmosphere that simply reeks with class/ And I trust that you’ll excuse my dust/ When I stop on the gas for I’ll be there.” A précis on the character Fred Astaire, he’s an incredible dancer, suave, worldly, hip to the Jazz scene, starched and shirted, but not overly so, he drops his gs, and most importantly he breathes the rarified air of class. An escapist fantasy for impoverished movie goers in the depths of the depression. Irving and Fred. Two boys that started from the bottom of society, mastered the codes, and went straight to the top honed their craft for two decades, and with pluck, guile and sweat rose to the top.

“Top Hat” vies with another number from the film, “Check to Check” as the most renowned Astaire film scenes. Musically “Check to Check” stands taller, another major standard with famous versions by the usual suspects, Billie, Frank, Ella, Ella and Louis, Bennett and Gaga, all different but all sexier, more exuberant than the gauzy, dreamy, romantic Astaire original. “…Oh, I’d love to climb a mountain/ And to reach the highest peak/ But it doesn’t thrill me half as much/ As dancing check to check…Dance with me/ I want my arm about you/ The charm about you/ Will carry me through to/ Heaven, I’m in heaven…”

1936 sees Fred and Ginger in two blockbuster movies. Songs from the films produced eight or nine hit records for Fred alone with quite a few more counting cover versions. Many consider Swing Time the apex of Astaire and Rodgers’ dancing abetted by a great musical score and assured singing by Fred. Jerome Kern paired with Dorothy Fields to write the music and lyrics respectively. Three songs came to be considered standards while “Bojangles of Harlem” provides Fred with a hambone feature dance number and “Never Gonna Dance” a spectacular dance duet. Fred forced 47 takes of the demanding “Never Gonna Dance” leaving Ginger to hobble off the set with bleeding, bruised feet. The song and dance achieve a kind of perfect balance of Broadway panache, silver screen magic and slick, sophisticated Jazz with Kern’s delightful melody floating on air. “Though, I’m left with a penny,/ The wolf was discreet./ He left me my feet./ And so, I put them down on anything/ But the la belle,/ La perfectly swell romance./ Never gonna dance./ Never gonna dance./ Only gonna love./ Have a heart that acts like a heart,/ Or is it a crazy drum,/ Beating the weird tattoos/ Of the St. Louis Blues?” A paean to tap dancing generally and Harlem’s most famous dancer, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson specially, Astaire had to visit Kerns at home, dancing around on his furniture to rouse the older, well established composer to spice up “Bojangles” to match his exuberant, athletic, black Harlem inspired dance routine.