Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein

Stephen Sondheim is a fascinating lyricist for having done so for the greatest notated "Western Hemisphere" opera of all time, West Side Story, with music by my teacher Leonard Bernstein inspired by my primary jazz teacher and subsequent very close friend, Lee Konitz, who was spawned by Benny Goodman and Lenny Tristano.

For existing interviews, Sondheim appears sleepy as if medicated, drunk or dragged out of bed while being fabulously articulate and speaking of how lyric and song writing is pure craft as opposed to inspiration.

I completely agree that's what his work comes off as, drudgery without noticeable inspiration with the noteworthy exception of a few sublime songs following his immortal collaboration with Leonard Berstein. Sondheim wanted to be an entertainer for the masses and it shows? Who knows and who cares.

His utter apparent ignorance of American jazz is stunning, but he does reveal studies with Milton Babbitt who was a great lover of jazz. What most obviously occurred is how the jazz passed over the head of Stephen Sondheim and to his last day he had no idea why West Side Story was so great even going so far as to say he was embarrased by the show and his personal contributions!

It was the jazz influence of Lee Konitz mixed with Russian composers Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinksy and Sergie Prokovfiev, these composers being infinitely more aware of American jazz than native Manhattanite Sondheim ever was.

Stephen Joshua Sondheim appears to have taken down due to the particularities of the inferior music he was attracted to following West Side Story whatever that was while presumably accumulating a lot of coin depending on how much he spent of it from his Manhattan townhouse.

Again, there are some masterwork individual songs, like All I Need Is The Girl, but after that its hard to think of the others which do exist, those few whose names don't really stick because even Send In the Clowns is kinda cloying and sentimental and not in a good way like I'm Getting Sentimental Over you as best recorded by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, working best as a ballad, of course, even heated faster ballad treatments, but still ballads if you are able to do aural differentiating.

Needless to say, Stephen Sondheim had Leonard Bernstein for West Side Story and after that there were some strained stabs together whereupon Sondheim refused to be in the same room as Bernstein for whatever odd reasons that are difficult to comprehend sounding most embarrassing like jealousy towards Lenny's abundant musical gifts that were scarcely there for Stephen who lacked the intuitive compass for the great music of his time for inspiration that Bernstein supplied in great abundance initially.

Lary Hart is my favorite lyricist of jazz even over Sammy Cahn, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Irving Mills, Oscar Hammerstein II and Cole Porter. They all know each other which in itself is a fascinating thing to wonder about.

I have recorded many of the songs of all these lyricists and more for the Azure Miles Records Piano Improvisation Series.

- Michael Robinson Longhi, February 2026, Los Angeles

Michael Robinson Longhi is a Los Angeles-based composer, pianist, and musicologist. His over 200 albums include over 150 albums for meruvina and over 50 albums of piano improvisations. He has performed and lectured at various American churches, universities, colleges, NPR, Pacifica, college, and community radio stations, high schools, elementary schools and community centers including all over the world online.