Was this a 'new' type of musical?

Well it was directed and written by Bob Fosse, who was a genius and always ahead of his time.

It very much was a new kind of musical. I am a typical 'guy' that would rather be dragged naked through cactus than sit through a regular and nearly every other musical ever made. But with ATJ it is the singing and dancing scenes that I look forward to and want to see most. Yes, Fosse was was a genius and great innovator. Every time I see this movie I see something new and fascinating. Just two nights ago it was on at 2AM and for some reason I just started paying attention to the shots and camera angles and reflections in the scene where they are going over what they could recoup from the insurance company. It is just brilliant and I just wondered how long Fosse worked on getting all that to work. To me him and Kubrik were the greatest directors alive then.

I saw a documentary a few months back about Bob Fosse. They were talking of how his first movie he directed, "Sweet Charity" was basically a flop. After that he made the great leap that making a movie that is basically a theatrical musical put on film was not working anymore. That what he needed was to have the singing and dancing only happen where it makes sense that there would be singing and dancing going on. When he made "Caberet" in 1972 all the singing and dancing only happened on stage in the Kit Kat club, Where you would expect there to be singing and dancing.

Fosse did the same in "All that Jazz". There is singing and dancing in the auditions and rehearsals of the musical he is directing. His daughter and girlfriend sing and dance for Joe Gideon for his birthday - Very expected for the birthday of the top musical choreographer. And then of course in his dream sequences when Joe Gideon is in the hospital. Fosse making these scenes very dream like made it even more more credible that there would be singing and dancing there.

"Moulin Rouge" was really an old style musical in which the characters may burst into song at any time. The innovation
in "Moulin Rouge" was in the slice and dice treatment of the music. I found that and the hyper-emotional tone disconcerting.

Fosse's "Cabaret" was a similar sort of musical, made several years earlier. Both films are really straightforward dramas about people in show biz who perform songs and dances in the course of their work, rather than spontaneously and unrealistically bursting into song, and Fosse made "Cabaret" seven years before "All That Jazz", so that film gets the credit for re-inventing the musical. Fosse was a fantastically innovative director and I wish he'd made more films!

The one thing in "All That Jazz" that's totally original is the opening audition montage, which is both a musical number and not a musical number. Sure, it's people dancing to a song and wowing the audience, but the people on screen aren't performing, they're going through a grueling day-long audition. It's only the fantastic editing that makes it into a musical number of sorts, and an utterly fantastic piece of film.