When you hear the name George Avakian, your brain probably goes straight to Miles Davis. Or maybe Louis Armstrong. It makes sense because the guy basically invented the modern jazz album. He was the architect behind Kind of Blue and the man who saved Columbia Records' jazz division from total obscurity. But 1965 was a weird, transitional year for the industry. Rock and roll was eating everyone's lunch. The British Invasion wasn't a trend anymore; it was the law of the land. Amidst all this chaos, Avakian did something most people—even die-hard vinyl collectors—completely forget. He stepped away from the recording booth to help shepherd a stage production. Searching for the George Avakian associate producer 1965 play leads you down a rabbit hole of mid-century theater that proves even the smartest guys in the room sometimes took a gamble on the lights of Broadway.
He wasn't just a "jazz guy" anymore.
By the mid-sixties, Avakian had already left Columbia, done a stint at Warner Bros., and was managing high-profile talent like Sonny Rollins. He was a fixer. If a project had soul but lacked structure, George was the one you called. In 1965, that project was The Zulu and the Zayda.
What Was The Zulu and the Zayda?
It’s a mouthful of a title. Honestly, it sounds like something that wouldn't fly today, but in 1965, it was a daring piece of social commentary disguised as a lighthearted musical play. It opened at the Cort Theatre on November 10. The plot centered on an unlikely friendship in racialized South Africa between a Jewish grandfather (the Zayda) and a young Zulu man.
Avakian’s role as associate producer wasn't just a vanity credit. He was working under the legendary Theodore Mann. You have to understand the dynamic here. Broadway in '65 was struggling to stay relevant as culture shifted toward the counter-culture. They needed guys who understood "cool." They needed someone who knew how to package complex, often international themes for an American audience that was increasingly distracted by television.
George brought a specific set of ears to the production. Since the play featured music and lyrics by Harold Rome, the auditory experience was everything. Avakian's background in capturing the "live" feel of jazz sessions translated surprisingly well to the theater. He knew how to make a performance feel immediate. He wasn't interested in the stiff, over-rehearsed vibe of traditional musicals. He wanted grit. He wanted the audience to feel the dust of Johannesburg and the warmth of a New York deli all at once.
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Why the George Avakian Associate Producer 1965 Play Matters Now
We often put creators in boxes. We say, "This person does jazz," or "This person does movies." Avakian rejected that. His involvement in The Zulu and the Zayda showed a producer who was willing to risk his reputation on a "play with music" that tackled apartheid and anti-Semitism at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was reaching a boiling point in the U.S.
It didn't just happen in a vacuum.
The play starred Menasha Skulnik and a very young Louis Gossett Jr. Think about that for a second. You have a giant of Yiddish theater and a future Oscar winner sharing a stage, managed behind the scenes by the guy who produced Ellington at Newport. That is a massive collision of cultural forces. Avakian saw the threads connecting these worlds. He realized that the rhythmic storytelling of African music and the melodic traditions of Jewish folk music weren't that far apart. It was a production that relied on his specific brand of cross-cultural literacy.
The Broadway Gamble of 1965
Broadway is a brutal business. Most plays lose money before they even finish their first week of previews. For Avakian, moving from the controlled environment of a recording studio to the chaotic world of live theater was a shock. In the studio, you can do another take. On Broadway, if the lead actor misses a cue or the lighting rig fails, you’re just... stuck.
The show actually did okay. It ran for 179 performances. That’s not a Phantom of the Opera run, but it’s respectable for a play that dealt with heavy-duty racial themes in the mid-sixties. Critics were somewhat split. Some loved the "folk" feel of the music, while others found the sentimentality a bit much. But Avakian’s influence was felt in the cast recording.
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Naturally, because it was George, there had to be a record.
He helped oversee how the sound of the stage was captured for the Columbia Masterworks release. If you listen to that original cast recording today, it has a clarity and a spatial depth that was rare for theater albums of that era. It sounds like a George Avakian production. It has that "in the room" intimacy. He treated the actors like he treated his horn players—letting the natural timbre of their voices carry the emotional weight rather than burying them under a massive, generic orchestra.
Misconceptions About His Role
A lot of people assume "Associate Producer" is just a title given to someone who brings in money. That’s a total misunderstanding of how George worked. He was a tinkerer. He was likely involved in the casting discussions and definitely had a hand in how the music was integrated into the script. He wasn't a silent partner.
You also have to remember his wife, Anahid Ajemian. She was a world-class violinist. They lived in a world of high art and rigorous musical standards. Avakian didn't do "flops" on purpose, and he certainly didn't do projects that lacked musical integrity. If he was attached to a 1965 play, it’s because he believed the sonic landscape of that play was worth preserving.
The Legacy of the 1965 Transition
Why don't we talk about this more? Probably because Kind of Blue is such a massive shadow that it hides everything else George did. But his move into theater in 1965 was part of a larger trend of jazz intellectuals trying to find a home for sophisticated storytelling.
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It was a pivot.
He saw the record industry changing—becoming more about "singles" and "teen idols"—and he looked toward the stage as a place where "adult" themes could still breathe. Even though he eventually returned to his roots in jazz management and historical preservation (the man literally saved the careers of several legends), this brief detour into the world of greasepaint and stage doors is a vital chapter.
It proves that the "producer mindset" is universal. Whether you are balancing the levels on a drum kit or balancing the egos of a Broadway cast, the goal is the same: clarity, emotion, and honesty.
How to Explore the Avakian Archives
If you’re looking to dig deeper into this specific era of his career, don’t just look at the jazz discographies. You have to look at the theater programs.
- Check the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. They hold the Billy Rose Theatre Division archives, which contain a lot of the original production notes for 1965 shows.
- Hunt down the Columbia Masterworks vinyl of The Zulu and the Zayda. Read the liner notes. You’ll see the fingerprints of a man who cared more about the "sound" of a story than just the notes on a page.
- Compare the play to his work with Olatunji. In the early 60s, Avakian was obsessed with bringing African percussion to a wider audience (Drums of Passion). His work on the 1965 play was a direct continuation of that interest in global rhythms.
The real lesson here? Never assume an expert stays in their lane. George Avakian was a polymath. He saw the world as a series of sessions, and in 1965, his session just happened to be on 48th Street.
Actionable Insights for Historians and Fans
To truly understand the impact of the George Avakian associate producer 1965 play, you should start by listening to the music he was producing right before and after this theatrical stint. Notice the shift in how he handles vocalists. There’s a theatricality that starts to creep into his jazz productions in the late 60s—a sense of "staging" the music rather than just recording it.
Start by tracking down the original playbill for The Zulu and the Zayda. Look at the credits. See who else was in that room. You’ll find a network of artists who were trying to bridge the gap between the Old World and the New World. Once you’ve done that, listen to the cast album with a pair of high-quality headphones. Pay attention to the mic placement on the vocals; it’s a masterclass in mid-century production technique that only someone with Avakian’s ears could have pulled off.