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Liza with a 'Z'
(and All That Jazz)

Radio Times 15 April 2006

Radio programme BBC Radio 2
Sunday 16 April 2006 7.00pm to 8.00pm

A tribute to Kander and Ebb, the songwriting duo that made Liza Minnelli a Broadway babe writes Martin Aston

You'd imagine from the title that this documentary was all about Liza Minnelli, and that the 'Jazz" reference might allude to the wild, troubled life she's led - daughter of a broken marriage between the even more troubled Judy Garland and film director Vincent Minnelli; Oscar-winning star of Cabaret; a luminous career that sold her talent short; and the cavalcade of alcohol and painkiller addictions and bad marriages. But, actually, Liza with a "Z" (and All That Jazz) is a tribute narrated by Liza that recalls the story of two men without whom her life could well have turned out for the worse.

Of American composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, the team behind classic scores such as Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman and New York, New York, Minnelli claims, "They became my voice, and later, they both told me, I became theirs." Meeting Ebb in 1964, she says, "was the beginning of my career. Fred soon became my mentor, my best friend, my inspiration and my parent figure. They were extraordinary men." Kander and Ebb wrote Minnelli's Broadway debut Flora the Red Menace (1964), but the real making of Liza was the 1972 film version of Cabaret, and she never sang or acted better than in Martin Scorsese's 1977 film New York, New York, even if the title track is now synonymous with Sinatra. The duo also wrote another of her career-defining moments, the 1972 TV concert special Liza with a "Z" (newly restored on DVD, and a sharp reminder of her volcanic charisma). "Liza with a 'Z' gave me my career and made me an individual," Minnelli recalls, "which was the greatest gift I ever received."

Minnelli returned the gift by turning narrator. "She turned up early to the studio, unflustered and without an entourage, and raring to go," according to producer Malcolm Prince. "She was anything but a diva." But he and Liza both know that Kander and Ebb are the heroes here. "They helped push Broadway in a more daring direction, both musically and dramatically," Minnelli claims, to which Prince adds, "they chose deep, dark subject matters. Take Chicago - women in prison singing about murdering their husbands, and this was 1975! None of their musicals can be described as a jolly family show."

With a muse such as Liza, it couldn't have been any other way.

Martin Aston

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