Can Do Kander

So what makes a John Kander tune sound like a John Kander tune? Let's a take a gander.

For one thing, John Kander is well known for his vamps. These are the little rhythmical intros that set up some of his best-known songs, such as "New York, New York":

Dah-dah-dee-dah-dah

Or "Wilkommen" from Cabaret:

Um-cha-cha-um-cha
Um-cha-cha-um-cha

At this point it should be noted that vamps are quite hard to record in words. Suffice to say that they are highly memorable and miniature musical ideas.

The interesting thing is that when you get to the songs themselves, they turn out to be quite vampish too. That is, they are often based on a small fragment of melody which is then repeated three times. This happens a lot with Kander.

So from Cabaret, we get several songs based on repeated melodic fragments:

Mein Herr ("Bye bye mein lieber herr")
Two Ladies ("Beedle dee deedle dee dee/Two ladies")
Maybe This Time ("Maybe this time")
Money, Money ("world go around")
Married ("How the world can change")

And from Chicago:

Funny Honey ("Sometimes I'm right")
When You're Good to Mama ("Got a little motto")
All I Care About ("expensive things")
My Own Best Friend ("One thing I know")
Me and My Baby ("Me and my baby, my baby and me")
Nowadays ("It's good, isn't it?")

Sometimes the melodic fragment is repeated exactly (as in "Money, Money") and sometimes slight changes are made with each repetition (as in "Nowadays" where the melody rises by a semi-tone each time). Of course, the lyrics will usually vary too.

What's interesting is the economy of it all: take a 4 or 5 note phrase, repeat three times and presto, you've pretty much got you're A section of a 32-bar song. And you might think that with all this repetition the songs would become, well, a bit boring. The fact that they don't is, in part, due to the musical and lyrical variations mentioned above. More importantly those 4 or 5 note phrases are so carefully chosen.

Let's take the thrice-repeated musical phrase from "Maybe This Time" from Cabaret:

Maybe this time (1)
I'll be lucky (2)
Maybe this time (3)
He'll stay

In this case the 4 notes that make up the phrase are repeated exactly each time (with an extra two notes on "He'll stay" to complete the basic tune). Those 4 notes are nothing remarkable (C-D-E-C). And yet they are well chosen. The feeling of those 4 notes is of moving away from the "home" note (C), reaching up for something new (D-E) and then quickly retreating home. The triplet rhythm also adds a bit of off-beat uncertainty. Musically I'd say those 4 notes are expressing a cautious optimism.

There's some musical variation introduced by the harmony as Kander employs one of his favourite chord progressions: tonic, augmented 5th, added 6th, added 9th. The same chord sequence is used in "Funny Honey" and "Nowadays" in Chicago. It's based around the tonic root so the chords feel as if they are changing incrementally rather than in any melodramatic way. Again, cautious.

Now let's consider the character singing: happy-go-lucky night club act Sally Bowles. She's got a new fella and this time he seems to be a good 'un. But she's a woman of the world and knows not to get her hopes too high. That's why the emphasis and musical downbeat is placed on the word "this" rather than "maybe". It's not that Sally is a cautious person, only that she has been through this before; maybe this time, as opposed to that time.

And all her cautious optimism can be summed up in those 4 notes. That's why we don't get bored with the repetitions. They reinforce the character of the song.

Songwriters and musical theatre composers never have the luxury of length. Theirs is the art of compression; saying a lot with very little. And Kander can do that better than most.