Irving Berlin wrote the jazz standard "Puttin' On the Ritz" in 1929 for the Broadway show of the same name. In those days just before The Great Depression devastated New York society, someone who dressed fashionably was described tongue-in-cheek as "putting on the Ritz," getting ready to go to the fancy Ritz Hotel.
Here we have a Feb 2012 flashmob in Moscow with hundreds of performers, tumblers, breakdancers, taps, streetsweepers, KGB?, and a wedding couple puttin' on the Ritz.
Цекало и Puttin` отожгли на Воробьевых горах .
In the movie version of the song Fred Astaire appears in top hat and tails in the 1946 film "Blue Skies." Partway through his great dance routine he is cloned and we get to see nine other dancing Freds.
Jazz enthusiasts might appreciate the unusual rhythm and syncopation (or lack thereof). Alec Wilder has described this song as "the most complex and provocative I have ever come upon."
