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 to compete with newer, popular music artists such as Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin and The Platters. The nadir of this decline was around 1958 and coincided with a recession that was effecting the entire country. There were far fewer big bands on the road and live music venues were hard to book for the Kenton orchestra. The band ended 1959 beaten up by poor attendance at concerts and having to rely far more on dance halls than real jazz concerts. The band reformed in 1960 with a new look and new sound, "West Side Story" was one of the first