Rapp on Jazz: Jazz and Broadway

Published November 17, 2025 at 6:06 AM EST

A scene from the musical production "Porgy and Bess," at New York's Radio City Music Hall is seen on March 23, 1983. Daisy Newman, left, sings Bess, Raymond H. Bazemore, second left, sings Lawyer Frazier, and James Tyeska, center, sings Porgy. (AP Photo)

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m Mark Rapp, and this is Rapp on Jazz.

Jazz has had a profound influence on the Broadway stage. In the 1920s and ’30s, jazz rhythms and harmonies began to reshape the sound of the American musical, giving it a freshness and vitality audiences hadn’t heard before.

George Gershwin was one of the first to bridge the worlds of jazz and Broadway with works like Porgy and Bess, where blues and jazz idioms became part of the storytelling. Later, shows like Chicago and Cabaret used the language of jazz—swing, improvisation, and smoky atmospheres—to set the mood and bring characters to life.

Even today, jazz continues to provide Broadway with energy, sophistication, and a sense of spontaneity. Without jazz, the Broadway sound we know and love wouldn’t exist.

This has been Rapp on Jazz, a co-production of ColaJazz and SC Public Radio, made possible byThe ETV Endowment of South Carolina.