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 very limited by the theatrical content of the music and Johnny Richards trying to stay true to the music with his orchestrations. The "Kenton's West Side Story" LP charted for 26 weeks in Billboard starting in October 1961, peaking at #16 in November on the Billboard Magazine Hot 100 albums. Stan Kenton is listed in Today's Top Record Talent honor roll in Billboard's April 4, 1963 issue citing both "Adventures In Jazz" and "Kenton's West Side Story" as top selling hits. Grammy Awards "Arranger Johnny Richards is responsible for the sometimes wild, sometimes mournful, but always interesting reading by the