Maybe if the barrel organ had worked that night, things would be very different. But, on the very night the new song was first performed, in 1928, this most mechanical of instruments broke down. In place of the thin, dark, eerie sound that should have emitted from the contraption of crank, pipes and bellows on the stage, the theatre orchestra stepped in to improvise from the pit. And in those days, in that licentious, decadent Weimar moment, ‘orchestra’ meant jazz band.
The Ballad Of Mackie Messer
The Ballad Of Mackie Messer
Maybe if the barrel organ had worked that night, things would be very different. But, on the very night the new song was first performed, in 1928, this most mechanical of instruments broke down. In place of the thin, dark, eerie sound that should have emitted from the contraption of crank, pipes and bellows on the stage, the theatre orchestra stepped in to improvise from the pit. And in those days, in that licentious, decadent Weimar moment, ‘orchestra’ meant jazz band.