West Side Story West Side Story West Side Story is a musical with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was inspired by William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet". The story is set in the Upper West Side neighborhood in New York City in the mid 1950s, an ethnic, blue-collar neighborhood (in the early 1960s, much of the neighborhood was cleared in an urban renewal project for Lincoln Center, which changed the neighborhood's character). The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of
Kenton's West Side Story heavily relied upon to carry the day. In no way does the LP accomplish the same things the later Kenton Grammy winning LP "Adventures In Jazz" achieves. It is understandable why the general public (vs a hard core jazz audience) was willing to readily accept "Kenton's West Side Story" propelling it to such high ratings with Billboard during 1961 and 1962. As a jazz soloist on trumpet, Conte Candoli is a shining star on the sessions. He backed his way onto the "Kenton's West Side Story" LP due to the failure of Ernie Berhardt to fill the trumpet solo slots