Emerson later folded the melody into a great many of his jams including the finale medley on Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1992-1993 tours, which also used musical themes from ' Blue Rondo à la Turk', a jazz standard composed by Dave Brubeck. At a July 7, 1968, concert at the Royal Albert Hall, the band controversially burned an American flag after performing the song. This version had the main theme playing against a straight 4Ĥ beat, also including pieces of Dvořák's New World Symphony, then changing in the middle to 6Ĩ for improvised guitar and organ solos. In 1968, The Nice, featuring Keith Emerson, covered an instrumental version of 'America' as the band's second single.Trini Lopez covered 'America' in 1963 for his first album Trini Lopez at PJ's.An instrumental version, with the signature rhythm reduced to a uniform 4Ĥ, was released in 1963 by Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass on their album Volume 2.The composer's tempo instruction is 'Tempo di Huapango'. Sondheim concludes that Bernstein had invented the story of finding the rhythm on holiday simply so he could reuse an old tune. Many years later, a friend of Sondheim's found, in a box of Bernstein's papers, an unproduced ballet called Conch Town which contained the tune. Stephen Sondheim claims that Bernstein returned from a holiday in Puerto Rico and told him he had come across a wonderful dance rhythm called Huapango which gave him the idea for the song. The alternation is comparable with the ' Habanera' from ' Carmen', but 'America' lacks the distinctive characteristic underlying rhythm of the habanera form. The two bar types alternate and are not superposed, as in a hemiola. This rhythm has been called both a hemiola and a habanera but is not really either. Problems playing this file? See media help.Ĩ (six eighth-notes in two groups of three) with 3Ĥ (three quarter-notes) (similar to a guajira) is a distinctive characteristic of the song. 'I like to be in A-mer-i-ca' from West Side Story. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards and for Best Musical Moment at the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards. This film's version of the song was nominated for Best Scene at the 2021 St. The 2021 film version of the song, sung by Ariana DeBose as Anita, David Alvarez as Bernardo, Ana Isabelle as Rosalia and Ilda Mason as Luz, is a hybrid of both the stage and 1961 film versions, except now taking place the morning after the dance at the gym, and in the streets of the Puerto Rican community's area of the city. In 2004, this version finished at No. 35 in AFI's 100 Years.100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. Some of the original song's disparagement was removed. In the 1961 film version, Anita, played by Rita Moreno, still sings in favor of the United States while Bernardo, played by George Chakiris, replies with corresponding criticisms of America and American ethnic prejudice, especially against Puerto Ricans ('Life is alright in America/If you're all White in America'). The irony of this supposedly pro-American number, however, is its vibrantly Hispanic musical style, with Latin percussion, complex cross-rhythm and Spanish guitar. This version of the song deprecates the island and highlights the positive qualities of American life ('I'll drive a Buick through San Juan/If there's a road you can drive on'). In the original stage version, Anita – the girlfriend of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, and the most important female character after Maria – praises America while a fellow Puerto Rican, Rosalia, supports Puerto Rico. Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics and Leonard Bernstein composed the music. Stone”) and Una Merkel (“Summer and Smoke”).' America' is a song from the 1957 musical West Side Story. “I flew into California thinking, ‘Hey, if there’s one iota of a chance that I may win, I need to be there,’” said Moreno, who was up against Garland, Fay Bainter (“The Children’s Hour”), Lotte Lenya (“The Roman Spring of Mrs.

“I was absolutely positive Judy Garland was going to win for ‘Judgment at Nuremberg,’” Moreno, now 90 and still vivacious and irreverent, said in a recent phone conversation from Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., where she was on a trip with her daughter.īut then she won a Golden Globe - and had a change of heart. And then, she got pragmatic.Īs a star of “Cry of Battle,” she would still be needed on set - 7,300 miles from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where that year’s Oscars ceremony would take place in April. So when she found out that she had been nominated for her first Academy Award - for best supporting actress for her performance as Anita in “West Side Story” - she took a moment to celebrate. In February 1962, Moreno, then 30, was in the Philippines, shooting “Cry of Battle” - a black-and-white World War II film in which she played the English-speaking leader of a band of Filipino fighters. It was the night that cemented her place in history, and Rita Moreno almost skipped it.

Rita moreno america