Remembering "Buddy" Strouse: PLAYBOY AFTER DARK May 14, 1970 - Part 1
An All Star Cast Celebrates a Great Songwriter and Broadway Legend
A few years ago, my friend Katharine Kaplan - wife of the formidable Harvey Kaplan (“Psychoanalyst and Psychologist in Private Practice”) - informed me that the two of them were living immediately downstairs from Charles and Barbara Strouse. This was the instigation for a series of events that the Kaplans threw in honor of the Strouses, and to which I had the pleasure of being invited. I believe that this particular occasion occurred in the Spring of 2019 - shortly before Martin Charnin died in July of that year - but I can’t pinpoint the exact date.
On this particular occasion, the guests included not only Charlie and Barbara, but Wally Shawn and his life companion Deborah Eisenberg (Katharine’s cousin), as well as David Rosen, the wonderful Kat Edmonson, Jon Weber (playing keyboards), Andrew J. Lederer, Andrew Poretz, the excellent film-maker Jim Burns, and a few surprise guests, among them the inestimable Marilyn Maye. (Marilyn was three months older than Charlie.)
This also was the only opportunity I ever had to hang out with Martin Charnin, who, as I mentioned, left us a few months later 2019. I remember Charlie was impressed that I had actually seen Annie Warbucks (aka Annie 2) - at the old Variety Photoplay Theater on the Lower East Side. (“Geez,” he said, “nobody saw that!”)
Songs were sung, stories were told, beverages were leveraged - and I also broke out my projector and offered an informal Clip Joint.
Our main event, video-wise, was this episode of Playboy After Dark, in which host and producer Hugh Hefner devoted an entire show to Charlie Strouse and his songbook. (This would be the very last episode of the series, show #52, dated May 15, 1970.)
In loving memory of Charlie, I wanted to share that episode with Substack readers
(All Songs in this episode: Music by Charles Strouse | Lyrics by Lee Adams)
Hal Frazier, Buddy Rich - “A Lot of Livin’ to Do” (BYE BYE BIRDIE)
We open with the first of two numbers featuring the unfortunately lesser-known singer Hal Frazier, a talented vocalist with a style reminiscent of Lou Rawls and, in some ballads, Johnny Mathis. Frazier was groomed for the show in the sense that he was being managed by Don Adams, the comedian taking a turn into personal management (Adams appears on this episode in fact) and booked extensively in the mid to late 1960s on the circuit of Playboy Clubs. He also made two fine full-length albums in 1968-’69, which as far as I know have never been reissued, but can be found on youtube.com. Frazier’s first number features accompaniment by no less than Buddy Rich on one of Strouse’s most extremely popular - and most recorded - numbers. Although “Put On a Happy Face” was the big number from Bye Bye Birdie at the time - and thanks to Tony Bennett, it was the hit of the show - there’s no doubt that “A Lot of Livin’ to Do” has become much more popular over the last 65 years.
Jack Cassidy - “The Woman For the Man” (SUPERMAN)
The 1966 Superman musical - more formally known as It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman - is an excellent show that one hopes will be restaged somewhere soon, at least in the light of the new Superman movie coming this summer. The show is based on characters appearing in Superman magazine as well as the 1952-1958 TV series The Adventures of Superman. Still, the book by David Newman and Robert Benton also adds a few new characters, including “Max Mencken,” in which Jack Cassidy got to play a delightfully sleazy gossip columnist modeled on Water Winchell, and Linda Lavin as “Sydney,” whose function seems to be to rival Lois Lane for Clark / Superman’s affections. “Woman for the Man” is Mencken’s big number, but note that the line on the cast album is “I’ve got a chef who cooks the end” - in ‘60s hipster slang - but here there’s a rather obnoxious ethnic slur in place of the word “chef.” If anything, the use of that offensive term makes Mencken out to be something even more repulsive, perhaps, than the authors intended, but Cassidy puts the number over with characteristic elan.
Talk segment 1 - Hugh Hefner, Charles Strouse, Chita Rivera, Jack Cassidy, Carol Burnett
Charles was at a particular high point in May 1970 - Applause had just won him and Lee Adams their second Tony (following Bye Bye Birdie). With five shows that reached Broadway in ten years, three were substantial hits (two of which were Tony winners), and the other two, All American (1962) and Superman (1966) had enough classic and successful songs to justify Charlie and Lee’s investment of energy and labor. Alas, Lee isn’t present, but Charlie and Hef chat about the theatrical scene in New York and London, and when Carol Burnett makes a (semi-surprise) appearance, they reminisce about their time together at Green Mansions, the theatrical lab (and holiday) camp in the Adirondacks. Again alas, Ms. Burnett doesn’t do anything other than chat semi-extemporaneously; there are no comedy bits or songs.
Chita Rivera “Put on a Happy Face” (BYE BYE BIRDIE) with Byron Gilliam & Paul Mooney
This tantalizingly brief clip of Chita doing a number that - as she makes a point of telling us - she did not sing in Bye Bye Birdie is one of the highlights of her career, on TV at least. She’s never been so well captured on a variety or talk show, even though there is amazing footage of her going back to the West Side Story period. Her dance partners are two regular attendees of the Playboy After Dark parties, Byron Gilliam (1940-1990) who served as lead dancer and dance director for the entire series, and Paul Mooney, the stand-up comedian and writer who worked closely with Richard Prior (1941-2021) and on the Living Color series. Chita has never been sexier or more vivacious; she certainly makes me put on a happy face.
Buddy Rich “Workout” (GOLDEN BOY) with Frankie Capp, percussion.
This is a largely instrumental dance number in the show; there are no lyrics, but there’s grunting and other vocal effects from the cast and dancers. Rich’s repartee with Hef, Jack Cassidy, and Charlie himself is not particularly inspired, but he more than makes up for it with his magnificent playing. A Buddy Rich drum solo is a thing of rare beauty, a marvel not only of control, accuracy, and precision, but of gracefulness and balance. It hardly seems like a workout when he plays it. Rich is joined by an unannounced guest star on percussion, the famous drummer and later bandleader Frankie Capp (costumed like he just just wandered over from a gig with the Baja Marimba band) and the two go at each other like Joe Wellington and his sparring partner. Rich is a sweaty mess when he finishes - and he doesn’t try to laugh it off - but for his trouble he is rewarded with attention from the Playmates of the Year for 1970 (Claudia Jennings, born Mary Eileen Chesterton) and 1969 (Connie Kreski, born Constance Joanne Kornacki, 1946-1995). (Thanks to Daniel Weinstein for recognizing Frankie Capp when I failed to!)
to be continued early next week in part two!
Here’s an episode of Sing! Sing! Sing! from 2023 in which we featured a jazz-and-pop mixtape of Charlie’s songs - and we only got up to Golden Boy!
The Charles Strouse Jazz & Pop Mixtape (RIP 1928-2025)
(SSS #062 2023-09-02)
download: <or> play online:
PS: Highly Recommended: The best-ever Ella Fitzgerald Discography, as compiled by the late Michele Scasso with considerable help and input from the mighty Steve Albin. Accessible here!
Coming soon:
Ella at the Movies
(Very special thanks to Elizabeth Zimmer & Dan Fortune for their expert proofing, hey!)
Coming on Wednesday May 21 @ 7:00PM, THE NEW YORK ADVENTURE CLUB presents STARDUST MELODIES: LEGACY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK webinar (All presentations are available for replay viewing for one week after the live event. For more information & reservations, please click here.)
Sing! Sing! Sing! : My tagline is, “Celebrating the great jazz - and jazz-adjacent - singers, as well as the composers, lyricists, arrangers, soloists, and sidemen, who help to make them great.”
A production of KSDS heard Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific; 1:00 PM Eastern.
To listen to KSDS via the internet (current and recent shows are available for streaming) click here.
The whole series is also listenable on Podbean.com; click here.
SING! SING! SING!
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