A Conversation with Composer John Kander

Four from Kander and Ebb

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  • "Maybe This Time"
  • Album: Cabaret [Original Sound Track Recording]
  • Artist: Various
  • Label: Hip-O
  • Released: 1969
 
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  • "All That Jazz [From Chicago]"
  • Album: Ultimate Broadway, Vol. 2
  • Artist: Various Artists
  • Label: RCA
  • Released: 1969
 
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  • "Wilkommen"
  • Album: Cabaret [1986 London Cast]
  • Artist: 1986 London Cast Recording
  • Label: First Night
  • Released: 1993
 
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  • "Quiet Thing [From Flora, The Red Menace][Live]"
  • Album: Best of Liza Minnelli [Columbia]
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  • Released: 2004
 

Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb are the heart and soul of some of the most recognizable songs of stage and screen: "Cabaret," "All That Jazz" and of course, "New York, New York."

A familiar sight and sound: John Kander at the piano.

Liane Hansen, NPR
John Kander at his piano.

A familiar sight and sound: John Kander at the piano.

Liane Hansen, NPR

Their partnership lasted 40 years, and when Fred Ebb died in 2004, they still had four different musicals in the works.

Kander has just turned 79. Liane Hansen paid a visit to his Manhattan home studio... a cozy basement room with a garden view and a baby grand piano.

Minstrel Show is one of the four projects under way before Ebb's death. The others are an original musical called Curtains, a musical based on The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder and a musical version of the Friedrich Durrenmatt play The Visit.

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This story was produced by Elaine Heinzman.

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Cabaret

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  • Album: Cabaret
  • Artist: Original Broadway Cast
  • Label: Sony
  • Released: 1998
 

Chicago

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  • Album: Chicago
  • Artist: Cast Recording
  • Label: RCA
  • Released: 1998
 

Flora the Red Menace

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  • Album: Flora the Red Menace
  • Artist: Off-Broadway Cast
  • Label: Jay Records
  • Released: 2000
 

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