West Side Story based loosely on "West Side Story" and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows. 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
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