The Juniper Theater Club is an old New York City tradition made new again.
In the first half of the twentieth century, jazz musicians commonly adapted the popular music of the day — frequently compositions by Tin Pan Alley's songwriters — into improvised performance. By the 1950s, the development of bebop and a new focus on original compositions for a listening audience rather than a dancing audience led to a decline of this practice in jazz.
The Juniper Theater club revives this approach to improvised music by exploring the repertoire of New York City's musical theater with the open minds and ears of improvising musicians. From new perspectives on the hit musicals of the mid-century to experimental arrangements of songs currently heard on Broadway's stages, the Juniper Theater club picks up where we left off in the 1950s and takes a truly American musical practice into the present day and far beyond into the limits of the imagination.