Bakelite – a revolutionary, non-flammable early plastic, made from carbolic acid and formaldehyde. It was invented by Belgian scientist Leo Baekeland in 1910.
Benny – the amphetamine Benzadrine in table form; a central nervous system stimulant.
cabaret card – a legal document that enabled an entertainer to perform in front of a live audience in a given city; New York was especially notorious for abuses to the system of distributing the cards, using it to economically punish performers and to further certain agendas, including racism.
caro figlio – Italian for “dear son.”
chops – for brass or wind players, this refers to their lips or mouth; also used to denote skill, as “He has the chops,” and in this case can refer to any type of musician.
Copa – Copacabana night club in New York.
crib – hole or hovel; small room.
Cuban Missile Crisis – October 1962; said to be the closest the world has come to nuclear war, when the Soviet Union placed intermediate-range missiles in Cuba; after 14 days of extremely tense negotiations and a U.S. agreement not to invade Cuba, they were removed.
doo-wop – a style of mostly unaccompanied vocal singing derived from a merging of elements of pop, gospel, blues, jazz and swing.
Downbeat – leading jazz magazine, published first in 1934.
gaslight – to cause someone to feel insane; the reference is from the 1939 book and 1944 film Gaslight.
Hell’s Kitchen – an area of New York City between 34th and 59th Streets, from 8th Ave to the Hudson River. During the Civil War, the population there was over 350,000, living in tenements amid slaughterhouses and factories. After the war, thousands of homeless street urchins became involved in neighborhood gangs. The name, Hell’s Kitchen, was given by a New York Times reporter in Sept. 1881, who had gone there to investigate a multiple murder.
horse – heroin in liquid form for injection into the veins.
NLRB – National Labor Relations Board.
orgone – a vital energy believed to pervade nature and to be accumulated for use by people in a specially designed box.
Purple Heart – the oldest military decoration in the world in present use and the first American award made available to the common soldier; it was first created by George Washington as the Badge of Military Merit and is awarded to members of the armed forces of the U.S. (or their kin) who are wounded by an instrument of war in the hands of an enemy.
RISD – Rhode Island School of Design, the prestigious art school in Providence, Rhode Island.
sideman – a musician who worked for hire on band jobs, who knew the standards by heart and could blend in with any orchestra’s sound; many famous jazz musicians – Miles Davis, for example – began their careers as sidemen.
Shirley Temple – a non-alcoholic drink, made with ginger ale and grenadine, often served with a piece of fruit.
swing – name given to a jazz style and a related phase of popular music which originated around 1930; it is characterized by a specific rhythmic phenomenon, which is difficult to define, and also an emphasis on solo improvisation within a large ensemble.
talkies – motion pictures with spoken dialogue and music; the first ones produced in the 1920s.
wire recorder – early type of sound recording on steel piano wire, first developed in 1878, with the first commercially successful ones introduced in 1930; between 1947-1952, wire recorders became popular in America and across Europe.
JAZZ MUSICIANS
Charlie Barnet (1913-1991) – millionaire playboy, saxophone, and big band leader, who was known as a champion for racial equality.
Clifford Brown (“Brownie,” 1930-1956) – trumpet player who died tragically in a car accident; a leading figure in the so-called hard-bop idiom, he was much admired for the clarity of his sound. Clifford is the namesake of the leading character in the play and it is Brown’s performance of “Night in Tunisia,” recorded informally in an instrument shop jam session the night he died, that unites the musicians in rapt attention during Act II.
John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993) - one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of 20th century and one of the prime architects of the bebop movement in jazz, was born in Cheraw, South Carolina and died in Englewood, New Jersey; named “Dizzy” for his on-stage antics.
Benny Goodman (1909-1986) – well-known clarinetist, composer and bandleader; known as the “King of Swing.”
Woody Herman (1931-1987) – clarinet and saxophone player, blues vocalist and bandleader; several of his orchestras were known as Herman’s Herds.
Norman “Tiny” Kahn (1924-1953) – drummer who played and recorded with many of the modern jazz stars of the time; also a composer and arranger.
Gene Krupa (1909-1973) – drummer who played with such big band greats Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller; will be known forever as the man who made the drums a solo instrument
Lester Lanin (1907-2004) – king of the New York dance band contractors; was know for playing “strict tempo” medleys of old favorites and contemporary hits for weddings, fund-raising balls, and other society affairs.
Richie Powell (1931-1956) – pianist; arranger for Clifford Brown and Max Roach from 1954 until he was killed with Brown in an automobile accident.
Claude Thornhill (1909-1965) – big-band orchestra leader; his main importance to jazz was the influence his arrangements and orchestral sound had on the cool jazz of the late 1940s; largely neglected and forgotten during his final years.
OTHERS
Sid Caesar (1922-) – American television and movie comedian; he was also a clarinet and saxophone player who played in small bands and a number of big orchestras, including Claude Thornhill’s.
Pablo Casals (1876-1973) –Spanish cellist, conductor and composer, with an international reputation that had reached its peak in 1914 and continued until his death.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) – French composer; regarded as one of the most important musicians of his time, his harmonic innovations had an profound influence on generations of composers; his “Prélude à l’après-midi d’une faune” (1891-94), after a poem by Stephen Mallarmé, is the piece which Terry plays in Side Man.
Buster Keaton (1895-1966) – American silent movie actor and comedian.
Jerome Kern (1885-1945) – one of the most significant composers in the history of musical theatre; credited with establishing a pattern for American show songs which provided the bridge between 19th century operetta style to the 20th century American musical; most famous for the musical Show Boat; composer of the song “Why Was I Born,” used in the play as a theme song for the Glimmer family.
General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) – the son of Civil War hero Lt. General Arthur MacArthur; he is described as a brilliant, controversial, aloof, egotistical, imperious, courageous, highly intelligent five-star U.S. Army General; his military service included important command assignments in the both World Wars and the Korean War.
Joe McCarthy (1908-1957) – U.S. Senator best known for waging a malicious and hysterical crusade against Communism, which he claimed, existed inside the government and across the nation.
Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) – Freudian psychoanalyst who “discovered” orgone energy and developed the orgone box
SONGS MENTIONED OR HEARD DURING THE PLAY
“My Funny Valentine” – Chet Baker (by Rodgers and Hart)
“I Remember Clifford” – (by Benny Golson)
“So What” – Miles Davis
“Chelsea Bridge” – Duke Ellington (by Billy Strayhorn)
“Echoes of Harlem” – Duke Ellington
“In My Solitude” – Ella Fitzgerald (by Duke Ellington)
“A Night in Tunisia” – Clifford Brown (by Dizzy Gillespie)
“It Never Entered My Mind” – Miles Davis
“Take Five” – Dave Bruebeck
“Ready Teddy” – Elvis Presley
“Why Was I Born” – Jerome Kern
