All That Chat - Jelly's Last Jam

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Jelly's Last Jam
Posted by: Singapore/Fling 10:09 pm EDT 03/15/22
In reply to: re: for the record, The Life had a lot of fans and major awards recognition ... - Chazwaza 09:26 pm EDT 03/15/22

Jelly's really isn't a jukebox musical in the vein of the others you mention. The music was by Jelly Roll Morton, but all of the lyrics were written for the show, and George Wolfe used Jelly's life as the basis for a deeply thoughtful and theatrically thrilling examination of Black Genius, Arrogance, and Self-Hatred. It's one of the great musicals of the 90s, and one that is sorely due a revival.
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re: Jelly's Last Jam
Last Edit: Chazwaza 12:37 am EDT 03/16/22
Posted by: Chazwaza 12:31 am EDT 03/16/22
In reply to: Jelly's Last Jam - Singapore/Fling 10:09 pm EDT 03/15/22

That's fair! I think not all the shows I mentioned fit into the same accurate subcategories that exist under "jukebox" or "revue", I am just lumping together shows that do not have original scores of music and lyrics written for the show. If JLJ were 1 of like 3 musicals of that category that were nominated or won, I'd feel your point more. But I listened 11 shows... Jelly's is certainly an outlier and in a category of its own in terms of how it used previous music and the intention and quality. But it's more the 10 other shows I'd put in the same category as Play On and Dream that I'm using as reasoning behind there being PLENTY of precedent for them being given a Best Musical nom if the Tonys committee thought The Life was so terrible. So let's take Jelly's out of my post.
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