1.
Jazz standard
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There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be standards changes over time. Songs included in major book publications and jazz reference works offer a rough guide to which songs are considered standards. Not all jazz standards were written by jazz composers, many are originally Tin Pan Alley popular songs, Broadway show tunes or songs from Hollywood musicals – the Great American Songbook. In Europe, jazz standards and fake books may include some traditional folk songs or pieces of ethnic music that have been played with a jazz feel by well known jazz players. A commonly played song can only be considered a jazz standard if it is played among jazz musicians. The jazz standard repertoire has some overlap with blues and pop standards, the most recorded jazz standard was W. C. Handys St. Louis Blues for over 20 years from the 1930s onward, today, the place is held by Body and Soul by Johnny Green. The most recorded standard composed by a musician is Thelonious Monks Round Midnight. From its conception at the change of the century, jazz was music intended for dancing. Edison, Inc. on Blue Amberol in December 1916 and in 1917, the first record with Jass on the label, The Original Dixieland One-Step was issue 18255 by Victor Talking Machine Company in 1917. Originally simply called jazz, the music of jazz bands is today often referred to as Dixieland or New Orleans jazz. Ragtime songs Twelfth Street Rag and Tiger Rag have become popular numbers for jazz artists, as have blues tunes St. Louis Blues, Tin Pan Alley songwriters contributed several songs to the jazz standard repertoire, including Indiana and After Youve Gone. Others, such as Some of These Days and Darktown Strutters Ball, were introduced by vaudeville performers, the most often recorded standards of this period are W. C. Handys St. Louis Blues, Turner Layton and Henry Creamers After Youve Gone and James Hanley, a period known as the Jazz Age started in the United States in the 1920s. Jazz had become popular music in the country, although older generations considered the music immoral, dances such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom were very popular during the period, and jazz bands typically consisted of seven to twelve musicians. Important orchestras in New York were led by Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, however, Chicagos importance as a center of jazz music started to diminish toward the end of the 1920s in favor of New York. In the early years of jazz, record companies were eager to decide what songs were to be recorded by their artists. Popular numbers in the 1920s were pop hits such as Sweet Georgia Brown, Dinah, the first jazz artist to be given some liberty in choosing his material was Louis Armstrong, whose band helped popularize many of the early standards in the 1920s and 1930s
2.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
3.
Musical theatre
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Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through the words, music, movement, since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan. Musicals are performed around the world and they may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional theatre productions, musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to the United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada, the three main components of a book musical are its music, lyrics and book. The interpretation of a musical is the responsibility of its team, which includes a director. A musicals production is also characterized by technical aspects, such as set design, costumes, stage properties, lighting. The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from the production, for example. There is no fixed length for a musical, while it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length, most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one intermission, and the first act is frequently longer than the second. A book musical is usually built four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in the show. Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in the West End have been presented in one act in recent decades, moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing, typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters, the material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels, plays, classic legends, historical events or films. On the other hand, many musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films, such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver
4.
Musical film
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The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline. The musical film was a development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater, performers often treat their song, in a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the age of the musical film. Musical short films were made by Lee de Forest in 1923–24, beginning in 1926, thousands of Vitaphone shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists and dancers. The Jazz Singer, released in 1927 by Warner Brothers, was the first to include a track including non-diegetic music and diegetic music. This feature-length film was also a musical, featuring Al Jolson singing Dirty Hands, Dirty Face, Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Blue Skies and My Mammy. Historian Scott Eyman wrote, As the film ended and applause grew with the houselights and she saw terror in all their faces, she said, as if they knew that the game they had been playing for years was finally over. Still, only isolated sequences featured live sound, most of the film had only a musical score. In 1928, Warner Brothers followed this up with another Jolson part-talkie, The Singing Fool, theaters scrambled to install the new sound equipment and to hire Broadway composers to write musicals for the screen. The first all-talking feature, Lights of New York, included a sequence in a night club. The enthusiasm of audiences was so great that in less than an all the major studios were making sound pictures exclusively. The Broadway Melody had a plot about two sisters competing for a charming song-and-dance man. Advertised by MGM as the first All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing feature film, it was a hit, there was a rush by the studios to hire talent from the stage to star in lavishly filmed versions of Broadway hits. The Love Parade starred Maurice Chevalier and newcomer Jeanette MacDonald, written by Broadway veteran Guy Bolton, Warner Brothers produced the first screen operetta, The Desert Song in 1929. They spared no expense and photographed a large percentage of the film in Technicolor and this was followed by the first all-color, all-talking musical feature which was entitled On with the Show
5.
George Gershwin
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George Jacob Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwins compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known, among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris as well as the opera Porgy and Bess. Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell and he began his career as a song plugger, but soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin, and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, who refused him, after returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and the author DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century, Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a malignant brain tumor – glioblastoma multiforme. Gershwins compositions have been adapted for use in films and for television. Many celebrated singers and musicians have covered his songs, Gershwin was of Russian Jewish and Ukrainian Jewish ancestry. His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of travel and residence as a Jew. His teenage son, Moishe Gershowitz, worked as a cutter for womens shoes. Moishe Gershowitz met and fell in love with Roza Bruskina, the daughter of a furrier in Vilnius. She and her family moved to New York due to increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris, Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a womens shoe factory. When he married Rose on July 21,1895, Gershowitz soon Americanized his name to Gershwine. Their first child was born on December 6,1896, Gershwin then moved his family into a second-floor apartment on Brooklyns Snediker Avenue. Their second son, soon to be renamed George, was born at there on September 26,1898 and his birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwine, with the surname pronounced Gersh-vin in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community. He was named after his grandfather, the one time Russian army mechanic, American practice by then was to give children a first and a middle name, but had no other. He changed the spelling of his name to Gershwin when he became a professional musician, George and Ira lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise which he became involved in. Mostly, the boys grew up around the Yiddish Theater District and they frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra
6.
Cole Porter
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Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre, after a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics, as well as the music, after a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the hits of his best work of the 1920s and 30s. It won the first Tony Award for Best Musical, Porters other musicals include Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady, Anything Goes, Can-Can and Silk Stockings. His numerous hit songs include Night and Day, Begin the Beguine, I Get a Kick Out of You, Well, Ive Got You Under My Skin, My Heart Belongs to Daddy and Youre the Top. Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, the surviving child of a wealthy family. His father, Samuel Fenwick Porter, was a druggist by trade and his mother, Kate, was the indulged daughter of James Omar J. O. Cole, the richest man in Indiana, a coal and timber speculator who dominated the family. J. O. Cole built the couple a home on his Peru-area property, after high school, Porter returned to the property only for occasional visits. Porters strong-willed mother doted on him and began his training at an early age. He learned the violin at age six, the piano at eight and she falsified his recorded birth year, changing it from 1891 to 1893 to make him appear more precocious. His father, who was a shy and unassertive man, played a role in Porters upbringing, although as an amateur poet, he may have influenced his sons gifts for rhyme. Porters father also had talent as a vocalist and pianist. J. O. Cole wanted his grandson to become a lawyer, Porter brought an upright piano with him to school and found that music, and his ability to entertain, made it easy for him to make friends. Porter did well in school and rarely came home to visit and he became class valedictorian and was rewarded by his grandfather with a tour of France, Switzerland and Germany. Entering Yale University in 1909, Porter majored in English, minored in music and he was a member of Scroll and Key and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and contributed to campus humor magazine The Yale Record. Porter wrote 300 songs while at Yale, including student songs such as the fight songs Bulldog
7.
Irving Berlin
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Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. His music forms a part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, Marie from Sunny Italy, in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights and he also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. Alexanders Ragtime Band sparked a dance craze in places as far away as Berlins native Russia. In doing so, said Walter Cronkite, at Berlins 100th birthday tribute, he helped write the story of country, capturing the best of who we are. He wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which him a legend before he turned thirty. During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 19 Broadway shows and 18 Hollywood films, with his songs nominated eight times for Academy Awards. Many songs became popular themes and anthems, including Easter Parade, White Christmas, Happy Holiday, This Is the Army, Mr. Jones, and Theres No Business Like Show Business. His Broadway musical and 1942 film, This is the Army, Celine Dion recorded it as a tribute, making it no.1 on the charts after the September 11 attacks in 2001. In 2015, pianist and composer Hershey Felder began touring nationwide as a show, portraying Berlin. Composer George Gershwin called him the greatest songwriter that has ever lived, Berlin was born on May 11,1888, in Tolochin, Russian Empire. He was one of eight children of Moses and Lena Lipkin Beilin and his father, a cantor in a synagogue, uprooted the family to America, as did many other Jewish families in the late 19th century. In 1893 they settled in New York City, as of the 1900 census, the name Beilin had changed to Baline. By daylight the house was in ashes, as an adult, Berlin said he was unaware of being raised in abject poverty since he knew no other life. Tsar Alexander III of Russia and then Tsar Nicholas II, his son, had revived with utmost brutality the anti-Jewish pogroms, which created the spontaneous mass exodus to America. When they reached Ellis Island, Israel was put in a pen with his brother and his Yiddish-speaking family eventually settled on Cherry Street, a windowless cold-water basement flat in the Theater District of the Lower East Side. His father, unable to find work as a cantor in New York, took a job at a kosher meat market and gave Hebrew lessons on the side
8.
Jerome Kern
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Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. A native New Yorker, Kern created dozens of Broadway musicals and his musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and the employment of syncopation and jazz progressions, built on, rather than rejected, earlier musical theatre tradition. He and his collaborators also employed his melodies to further the action or develop characterization to a greater extent than in the musicals of his day. Although dozens of Kerns musicals and musical films were hits, only Show Boat is now regularly revived, songs from his other shows, however, are still frequently performed and adapted. Many of Kerns songs have been adapted by jazz musicians to become standard tunes, Kern was born in New York City, on Sutton Place, in what was then the citys brewery district. His parents were Henry Kern, a Jewish German immigrant, and Fannie Kern née Kakeles, at the time of Kerns birth, his father ran a stable, later he became a successful merchant. Kern grew up on East 56th Street in Manhattan, where he attended public schools and he showed an early aptitude for music and was taught to play the piano and organ by his mother, an accomplished player and teacher. In 1897, the moved to Newark, New Jersey. He wrote songs for the schools first musical, a show, in 1901. Kern left high school graduation in the spring of his senior year in 1902. In response, Kerns father insisted that his son work with him in business, Kern, however, failed miserably in one of his earliest tasks, he was supposed to purchase two pianos for the store, but instead he ordered 200. His father relented, and later in 1902, Kern became a student at the New York College of Music, studying the piano under Alexander Lambert and Paolo Gallico and his first published composition, a piano piece, At the Casino, appeared in the same year. Between 1903 and 1905, he continued his training under private tutors in Heidelberg, Germany. For a time, Kern worked as a rehearsal pianist in Broadway theatres, while in London, he secured a contract from the American impresario Charles Frohman to provide songs for interpolation in Broadway versions of London shows. He began to provide these additions in 1904 to British scores for An English Daisy, by Seymour Hicks and Walter Slaughter, in 1905, Kern contributed the song Howd you like to spoon with me. To Ivan Carylls hit musical The Earl and the Girl when the transferred to Chicago. He also contributed to the New York production of The Catch of the Season, The Little Cherub and The Orchid, Kern was much taken with the proprietors daughter, Eva Leale, who was working behind the bar. He wooed her, and they were married at the Anglican church of St. Marys in Walton on October 25,1910, the couple then lived at the Swan when Kern was in England
9.
Harold Arlen
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Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, including the classic Over the Rainbow, over the Rainbow was voted the twentieth centurys No.1 song by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Arlen was born in Buffalo, New York, United States and his twin brother died the next day. He learned the piano as a youth and formed a band as a young man and he achieved some local success as a pianist and singer and moved to New York City in his early 20s. He worked as an accompanist in vaudeville, at this point, he changed his name to Harold Arlen. In 1929, Arlen composed his first well-known song, Get Happy, throughout the early and mid-1930s, Arlen and Koehler wrote shows for the Cotton Club, a popular Harlem night club, as well as for Broadway musicals and Hollywood films. Arlen and Koehlers partnership resulted in a number of hit songs, including the familiar standards Lets Fall in Love, Arlen continued to perform as a pianist and vocalist with some success, most notably on records with Leo Reismans society dance orchestra. Arlens compositions have always been popular with jazz musicians because of his facility at incorporating a blues feeling into the idiom of the conventional American popular song, in the mid-1930s, Arlen married, and spent increasing time in California, writing for movie musicals. It was at time that he began working with lyricist E. Y. In 1938, the team was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to compose songs for The Wizard of Oz, the most famous of these is the song Over the Rainbow for which they won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song. They also wrote Down with Love, Lydia the Tattooed Lady for Groucho Marx in At the Circus in 1939, Arlen was a longtime friend and former roommate of actor Ray Bolger, who starred in The Wizard of Oz. Arlen died of cancer at his Manhattan apartment, at the age of 81,1905 Arlen born in Buffalo, New York 1920 He formed his first professional band, Hyman Arlucks Snappy Trio. 1921 Against his parents wishes he left home,1923 With his new band – The Southbound Shufflers, performed on the Crystal Beach lake boat Canadiana during the summer of 1923. 1924 Performed at Lake Shore Manor during the summer of 1924,1924 Wrote his first song, collaborating with friend Hyman Cheiffetz to write My Gal, My Pal. Copyrighting the song as My Gal, Wont You Please Come Back to Me. and listed lyrics by Cheiffetz,1925 Makes his way to New York City with the group, The Buffalodians, with Arlen playing piano. 1926 Had first published song, collaborating with Dick George to compose Minor Gaff under the name Harold Arluck,1928 Chaim Arluck renames himself Harold Arlen, a name that combined his parents surnames. 1929 Landed a singing and acting role as Cokey Joe in the musical The Great Day,1929 Composed his first well known song – Get Happy – under the name Harold Arlen. 1929 Signed a yearlong song writing contract with the George and Arthur Piantadosi firm, 1930–1934 Wrote music for the Cotton Club
10.
Johnny Mercer
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John Herndon Johnny Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He was also the founder of Capitol Records and he is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others. From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of the songs Mercer wrote and he wrote the lyrics to more than fifteen hundred songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Academy Award nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars, Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia. Lillians father was a merchant seaman who ran the Union blockade during the U. S. Civil War, Mercer was Georges fourth son, first by Lillian. Mercer was also a distant cousin of General George S. Patton, neither the General, nor Mercer himself, ever lived there. His mothers father was born in Lastovo, Croatia in 1834 to mother Ivana Cucevic, Mercer liked music as a small child and attributed his musical talent to his mother, who would sing sentimental ballads. Mercers father also sang, mostly old Scottish songs and his aunt told him he was humming music when he was six months old and later she took him to see minstrel and vaudeville shows where he heard “coon songs” and ragtime. The family’s summer home “Vernon View” was on the waters and Mercer’s long summers there among mossy trees, saltwater marshes. Mercer’s exposure to music was perhaps unique among the white songwriters of his generation. As a child, Mercer had African-American playmates and servants, and he listened to the fishermen and vendors about him and he was also attracted to black church services. Mercer later stated, “Songs always fascinated me more than anything and he had no formal musical training but was singing in a choir by six and at 11 or 12 he had memorized almost all of the songs he had heard and became curious about who wrote them. He once asked his brother who the best songwriter was, and his brother said Irving Berlin, despite Mercers early exposure to music, his talent was clearly in creating the words and singing, not in playing music, though early on he had hoped to become a composer. In addition to the lyrics that Mercer memorized, he was an avid reader and his attempts to play the trumpet and piano were not successful, and he never could read musical scores with any facility, relying instead on his own notation system. As a teenager in the Jazz Era, he was a product of his age and he hunted for records in the black section of Savannah and played such early black jazz greats as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong. His father owned the first car in town, and Mercer’s teenage social life was enhanced by his driving privilege, later, Mercer wrote a humorous song called Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry. Mercer attended exclusive Woodberry Forest boys prep school in Virginia until 1927, though not a top student, he was active in literary and poetry societies and as a humor writer for the school’s publications
11.
Richard Rodgers
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Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television and he is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. His compositions have had a significant impact on popular music up to the present day and he has also won a Pulitzer Prize, making him one of two people to receive each award. Richard began playing the piano at age six,10, Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School. Rodgers spent his teenage summers in Camp Wigwam where he composed some of his first songs. Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, and later collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II all attended Columbia University, at Columbia, Rodgers joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. In 1921, Rodgers shifted his studies to the Institute of Musical Art, Rodgers was influenced by composers such as Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern, as well as by the operettas his parents took him to see on Broadway when he was a child. In 1919, Richard met Lorenz Hart, thanks to Phillip Leavitt, Rodgers and Hart struggled for years in the field of musical comedy, writing several amateur shows. They made their debut with the song Any Old Place With You. Their first professional production was the 1920 Poor Little Ritz Girl and their next professional show, The Melody Man, did not premiere until 1924. When he was just out of college Rodgers worked as director for Lew Fields. Among the stars he accompanied were Nora Bayes and Fred Allen, Rodgers was considering quitting show business altogether to sell childrens underwear, when he and Hart finally broke through in 1925. They wrote the songs for a show presented by the prestigious Theatre Guild, called The Garrick Gaieties. Only meant to run one day, the Guild knew they had a success, the shows biggest hit — the song that Rodgers believed made Rodgers and Hart — was Manhattan. The two were now a Broadway songwriting force, throughout the rest of the decade, the duo wrote several hit shows for both Broadway and London, including Dearest Enemy, The Girl Friend, Peggy-Ann, A Connecticut Yankee, and Present Arms. Their 1920s shows produced standards such as Here in My Arms, Mountain Greenery, Blue Room, My Heart Stood Still, with the Depression in full swing during the first half of the 1930s, the team sought greener pastures in Hollywood. Rodgers also wrote a melody for which Hart wrote three consecutive lyrics which either were cut, not recorded or not a hit, the fourth lyric resulted in one of their most famous songs, Blue Moon. In 1935, they returned to Broadway and wrote an almost unbroken string of hit shows that only with Harts death in 1943
12.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
13.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
14.
J.W. Pepper & Son
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Pepper & Son, Inc. is a privately owned, American sheet music retailer based in Exton, Pennsylvania. The company is credited with being the largest sheet music retailer in the world, customers who buy music from Pepper include individual musicians, community organizations and professional ensembles, with the main customer base being school and church music directors. James Welsh Pepper was born in Philadelphia in 1853, and died in the city on July 28,1919. He was an American music publisher and musical instrument maker, in 1876, Pepper founded a publishing house in his home city which printed music tutorial books and a magazine called Musical Times, which ceased production in 1912. Additionally, Pepper produced musical instruments such as drums until 1910, Pepper is often credited with inventing the sousaphone around 1893, although there have been some disputes to this claim. Pepper has 11 regional marketing centers, along with two distribution centers dedicated to order fulfillment and shipping, in spring of 2009, Pepper added two new warehouses to the company’s distribution network. From 1984-2013, the headquarters was located in Paoli, Pennsylvania. In October 2013, the headquarters moved further west to Exton. Pepper & Son corporate website Free scores by J. W
15.
Alfred Music
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Alfred Music is a music publishing company. Founded in New York in 1922, it is headquartered in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, with branches in Miami, New York, Australia, Germany, Singapore. The company was founded in New York by composer and musician Albert Joseph Piantadosi in 1922, when clarinetist and pianist Morty Manus began working for his fathers company in the 1950s, he began focusing company efforts on the education market. In 1975, the moved to larger offices in Los Angeles. In 1980, with growing sales, the company went international, in 2002, the company partnered with Daisy Rock Girl Guitars, and in 2005 it acquired Warner Bros. Publications from the Warner Music Group, again expanding its business, Alfred Music was acquired by Peaksware Holdings, LLC in 2016. Behind the Player is a series of DVDs from Alfred Music Publishing, consisting of conversations with, Alfred Publishing Morton and Iris Manus NAMM Oral History Program Ron Manus Interview NAMM Oral History Program Steven Raft Interview NAMM Oral History Program
16.
Genre
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Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time. Genres form by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented, often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, some genres may be rigid with strictly adhered to guidelines while others may be very flexible. Genre began as a classification system for ancient Greek literature. Poetry, prose, and performance each had a specific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story. Speech patterns for comedy would not be appropriate for tragedy, in later periods genres proliferated and developed in response to changes in audiences and creators. Genre became a tool to help the public make sense out of unpredictable art. Because art is often a response to a state, in that people write/paint/sing/dance about what they know about. Genre suffers from the ills of any classification system. Genre is to be reassessed and scrutinized and to works on their unique merit. While the genre of storytelling has been relegated as lesser form of art because of the heavily borrowed nature of the conventions, proponents argue that the genius of an effective genre piece is in the variation, recombination, and evolution of the codes. The term genre is used in the history and criticism of visual art. These are distinguished from staffage, incidental figures in what is primarily a landscape or architectural painting, Genre painting may also be used as a wider term covering genre painting proper, and other specialized types of paintings such as still-life, landscapes, marine paintings and animal paintings. The concept of the hierarchy of genres was a one in artistic theory. It was strongest in France, where it was associated with the Académie française which held a role in academic art. Genres may be determined by technique, tone, content. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as adult, young adult. They also must not be confused with format, such as novel or picture book
17.
Arthur Schwartz
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Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer. Schwartz was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on November 25,1900 and he taught himself to play the harmonica and piano as a child, and began playing for silent films at age 14. He earned a B. A. in English at New York University, forced by his father, an attorney, to study law, Schwartz graduated from NYU Law School and was admitted to the Bar in 1924. While studying law, he supported himself by teaching English in the New York school system and he also worked on songwriting concurrently with his studies and published his first song by 1923. Acquaintances such as Lorenz Hart and George Gershwin encouraged him to stick with composing and he attempted to convince Howard Dietz, an MGM publicist who had collaborated with Jerome Kern, to work with him, but Dietz initially declined. As Artist Direct documents, Schwartz placed his first songs in a Broadway show, by 1928, he had closed his law office and convinced Dietz to write with him. Schwartz also started contributing songs to motion pictures, beginning with Im Afraid of You in Queen High. Among other Broadway musicals for which Schwartz wrote the music are, The Band Wagon, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, By the Beautiful Sea, The Gay Life and his films include the MGM musical The Band Wagon with lyricist Howard Dietz. Schwartz also worked as a producer, for Columbia Pictures and his work includes the musical Cover Girl and the Cole Porter biographical film Night and Day. Schwartz was married to 1930s Broadway ingénue Kay Carrington, until her death when their first son, Jonathan is now a radio personality and sometime musician. Schwartzs younger son, Paul Schwartz, with actress/dancer Mary Schwartz, is a composer, conductor, pianist, Arthur Schwartz died September 3,1984, in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania. In 1972, Schwartz was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, in 1981, he was inducted in 1981 into the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 1990, Schwartzs hit, Thats Entertainment from the film The Band Wagon, was awarded the ASCAP Award for Most Performed Feature Film Standard, see the section Arthur Schwartz in List of musicals by composer, M to Z#S. The following is a selection of songs composed by Arthur Schwartz, haunted Heart, introduced in the musical Inside U. S. A. and recorded by Susannah McCorkle Thats Entertainment
18.
Vernon Duke
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Vernon Duke was an American composer/songwriter, who also wrote under his original name, Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for Taking a Chance on Love with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche, I Cant Get Started with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, Harburg, and What Is There To Say for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, also with Harburg. He wrote the words and music for Autumn in New York for the revue Thumbs Up, Vernon collaborated with lyricists such as Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, Ogden Nash and Sammy Cahn. Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky was born in 1903 into a family of mixed Georgian-Austrian-Spanish-Russian descent, in Parafianovo, Vilna Governorate. The 1954 Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians referred to one of his grandparents as having been descended from the kings of Georgia. His birthplace was a railroad station in Minsk Governorate. At that time his mother happened to be traveling by train, the Dukelskys resided in Kiev, and Vladimirs only visit to Saint Petersburg and Moscow occurred in the summer of 1915. The impressions of that summer were later echoed in Dukelskys most daring classical composition. The title is a reference to the film The End of St. Petersburg directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin, at the age of 11, Dukelsky was admitted to the Kiev Conservatory where he studied composition with Reinhold Glière and musical theory with Boleslav Yavorsky. In 1919, his family escaped from the turmoil of war in Russia and spent a year. In 1921, they obtained American visas and sailed steerage class on the SS King Alexander to New York and he underwent his immigrant inspection at Ellis Island, on the passenger list, the purser of the King Alexander recorded his name as Vladimir Doukelsky in the French fashion. It was in 1922 in New York that George Gershwin befriended the young immigrant, Gershwin suggested Dukelsky truncate, Dukelskys first songs published under his nom de plume were conceived that year, but he continued to write classical music and Russian poetry under his given name until 1955. In 1924, the young man left hospitable America for the Old World. In Paris, he received a commission from Serge Diaghilev to compose a ballet, in a review of musical novelties of the season, Sergei Prokofiev described it as full of superior melodies, very well designed, harmonically beautiful and not too modernist. Prokofiev was as impressed with the talent as Diaghilev was. Dukelskys First Symphony was premiered by Serge Koussevitzky and his orchestra in 1928 in Paris on the bill as the excerpts from Prokofievs The Fiery Angel. Some of Dukelskys and Prokofievs compositions of the 1930s bear evidence of the musical dialogue. In the late 1920s, Dukelsky shared his time between Paris, where his more classical works were performed, and London where he composed numbers for musical comedies under the pen name of Vernon Duke
19.
Hoagy Carmichael
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Howard Hoagland Hoagy Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader from Indiana. Carmichael composed several hundred songs, including fifty that achieved hit record status and he is best known for composing the music for Stardust, Georgia on My Mind, The Nearness of You, and Heart and Soul, four of the most-recorded American songs of all time. He also collaborated with lyricist Johnny Mercer on Skylark, Carmichaels Ole Buttermilk Sky was an Academy Award-nominee in 1946, In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening, with lyrics by Mercer, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1951. Carmichael also appeared as an actor and musical performer in fourteen motion pictures. Born in Bloomington, Indiana, on November 22,1899, Hoaglund Howard Hoagie Carmichael was the first child and only son of Howard Clyde and his parents named him after a circus troupe called the Hoaglands that had stayed at the Carmichael house during his mothers pregnancy. Hoagy had two sisters, Georgia and Joanne. Because of Howards unstable job history, the family moved frequently, Hoagy spent most of his early years in Bloomington and in Indianapolis, Indiana. Carmichaels mother taught him to sing and play the piano at an early age, the Carmichael family moved to Indianapolis in 1916, but Hoagy returned to Bloomington in 1919 to complete high school. The piano was the focus of Carmichaels after-school life, for inspiration he would listen to ragtime pianists Hank Wells and Hube Hanna. At eighteen, the small, wiry, and pale Carmichael helped supplement his family’s meager income by working in jobs in construction, at a bicycle-chain factory. The bleak time was partly spelled by four-handed piano duets with his mother and by his friendship with DuValle, Carmichael earned his first money as a musician playing at a fraternity dance in 1918, marking the beginning of his musical career. The death of Carmichaels three-year-old sister in 1918 affected him deeply and he later wrote My sister Joanne—the victim of poverty. We couldn’t afford a doctor or good attention, and that’s when I vowed I would never be broke again in my lifetime. Joanne may have died from influenza, which had swept the world that year, Carmichael attended Indiana University in Bloomington, where he earned a bachelors degree in 1925 and a law degree in 1926. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and played the piano around Indiana and Ohio with his band, around 1922 Carmichael first met Leon Bix Beiderbecke, a cornetist and sometime pianist from Iowa. The two became friends and played music together, under Beiderbecke’s influence Carmichael began playing the cornet, but found that he didnt have the lips for the instrument and played it only briefly. He was also inspired by Beiderbeckes impressionistic and classical music ideas, the song became a jazz staple. Carmichaels other early compositions included Washboard Blues and Boneyard Shuffle
20.
Harry Warren
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Harry Warren was an American composer and lyricist. Warren was the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song eleven times and won three Oscars for composing Lullaby of Broadway, Youll Never Know and On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe. He wrote the music for the first blockbuster film musical, 42nd Street, choreographed by Busby Berkeley, over a career spanning four decades, Warren wrote more than 800 songs. Warren was one of Americas most prolific composers, and his songs have been featured in over 300 films. Warren was born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna, one of children of Italian immigrants Antonio and Rachel De Luca Guaragna. His father changed the name to Warren when Harry was a child. Although his parents could not afford lessons, Warren had an early interest in music. He also sang in the choir and learned to play the drums. He began to play the drums professionally by age 14 and dropped out of school at 16 to play with his godfathers band in a traveling carnival. He also played the piano in cafés and silent-movie houses, in 1918 he joined the U. S. Navy, where he began writing songs. Warren wrote over 800 songs between 1918 and 1981, publishing over 500 of them and they were written mainly for 56 feature films or were used in other films that used Warrens newly written or existing songs. His songs eventually appeared in over 300 films and 112 of Warner Bros, looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. 42 of his songs were on the top ten list of the radio program Your Hit Parade,21 of these reached #1 on Your Hit Parade. Youll Never Know appeared 24 times and his song I Only Have Eyes for You is listed in the list of the 25 most-performed songs of the 20th Century, as compiled by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Warren was the director of ASCAP from 1929 to 1932 and he collaborated on some of his most famous songs with lyricists Al Dubin, Billy Rose, Mack Gordon, Leo Robin, Ira Gershwin and Johnny Mercer. In 1942 the Gordon-Warren song Chattanooga Choo-Choo, as performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra and it was No.1 for nine weeks on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1941–1942, selling 1.2 million copies. Warrens first hit song was Rose of the Rio Grande, with lyrics by Edgar Leslie and he wrote a succession of hit songs in the 1920s, including I Love My Baby and Seminola in 1925, Where Do You Work-a John. And In My Gondola in 1926 and Nagasaki in 1928 and he worked for 20th Century Fox starting in 1940, writing with Mack Gordon
21.
Isham Jones
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Isham Edgar Jones was an American bandleader, saxophonist, bassist and songwriter. Jones was born in Coalton, Ohio, to a musical and mining family, and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1911 one of Joness earliest compositions On the Alamo was published by Tell Taylor Inc. In 1915 Jones moved to Chicago, Illinois and he performed at the Green Mill Gardens, then began playing at Fred Manns Rainbo Gardens. Chicago remained his home until 1932, when he settled in New York City and he also toured England with his orchestra in 1925. In 1917, he composed the tune Were In The Army Now when United States entered the World War I, the same tune has been popular well again during the World War II and its played even by US Army Band. The Isham Jones band made a series of gramophone records for Brunswick throughout the 1920s. His first 26 sides, made at Rainbo Gardens, were credited to Isham Jones Rainbo Orchestra, by the end of 1920, the name was simply Isham Jones Orchestra. He led one of the most popular bands in the 1920s and 1930s. His first successful recording, Wabash Blues written by Dave Ringle and Fred Meinken, was recorded in 1921 by Isham Jones and this million-seller stayed for twelve weeks in the U. S. charts, six at No.1. It was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA, noted musicians who played in Joness band included Louis Panico, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Walt Yoder, and Roy Bargy. Reed virtuoso Al Gallodoro appeared briefly with Jones in 1933, taking part in a record date October 3, Jones was reportedly a strict taskmaster and was known for being rather cold and distant. From the start, his Brunswick records were popular, there was a gap from October 1927 to June 1929 where Jones did not record due to disbanding and reorganization. From 1929 to 1932, his Brunswick recordings became more sophisticated with offbeat arrangements by Gordon Jenkins and others, Jones was his own arranger early on. During this period, Jones started featuring violinist Eddie Stone as one of his regular vocalists, Stone had an unusual, almost humorous tone to his voice. His other vocalists included Frank Sylvano, Billy Scott, and Arthur Jarrett, in 1932, he added Joe Martin, another of the bands violinists, as a frequent vocalist. In April that year, young Bing Crosby recorded two sessions with Joness group which included Sweet Georgia Brown, Crosby at this point in his career was still singing in a jazz idiom, transitioning to his better known crooner style. In August 1932, Jones signed with Victor, and these records are considered among the best arranged and performed commercial dance records of the Depression era. Victors recording technique was suited to Jones band, in October 1932, he teamed up with the Three X Sisters in New York who had just departed from CBS radio
22.
Jimmy McHugh
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James Francis Jimmy McHugh was an American composer. One of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s to the 1950s, McHugh began his career in Boston, where he published about a dozen songs with local publishers. This songwriting partnership marked another of McHugh’s many collaborations, among them Ted Koehler, Al Dubin, as impressive as these master lyricists were, perhaps McHugh’s best symbiotic musical relationship was with the school teacher and poet Dorothy Fields. In the artistically fruitful years after they first collaborated in 1930, McHugh, Fields and McHugh finally parted company in 1935. McHughs longest songwriting partner was Harold Adamson, Adamson provided lyrics to McHughs compositions. Such hits as Coming in on A Wing and A Prayer found its way into Bartletts Familiar Quotations, below are several of their many hits listed. For the 1948 film A Date with Judy, he composed Its a Most Unusual Day for Jane Powell, it became the young singer, Jimmy McHugh was inducted into The Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. The songs included were I Cant Give You Anything but Love, Im Shooting High, Roll Your Blues Away, other well-known songs of his include Im in the Mood for Love, A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening and Cuban Love Song. – Johnny Mathis Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre by Stanley Green, published by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York 1976. The Oxford Companion to Popular Music by Peter Gammond, published by Oxford University Press 1991. The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950, jamaica Plain Historical Society - People Editor - - Jimmy McHughs Musical Legacy. MetroWest Daily News. The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall by Iain Cameron Williams
23.
Duke Ellington
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Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death in a career spanning over fifty years. Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward, in the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Some of the musicians who were members of Ellingtons orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in jazz, Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades, a master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington often composed specifically to feature the style and skills of his individual musicians. Ellington also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, for example Juan Tizols Caravan, and Perdido, after 1941, Ellington collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed many extended compositions, or suites, following an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, in July 1956, Ellington and his orchestra enjoyed a major career revival and embarked on world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in films, scoring several. His reputation continued to rise after he died, and he was awarded a special posthumous Pulitzer Prize for music in 1999, Ellington was born on April 29,1899, to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Ellington in Washington, D. C. Daisy primarily played parlor songs and James preferred operatic arias and they lived with his maternal grandparents at 2129 Ida Place, NW, in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D. C. Dukes father was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on April 15,1879, Daisy Kennedy was born in Washington, D. C. on January 4,1879, the daughter of a former American slave. James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy, when Ellington was a child, his family showed racial pride and support in their home, as did many other families. African Americans in D. C. worked to protect their children from the eras Jim Crow laws, at the age of seven, Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners, Ellingtons childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, and began calling him Duke. Ellington credited his chum Edgar McEntree for the nickname, I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was interested in baseball. President Roosevelt would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play, Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D. C. He gained his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games, in the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Café, Ellington wrote his first composition, Soda Fountain Rag. He created the piece by ear, as he had not yet learned to read, I would play the Soda Fountain Rag as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot, Ellington recalled
24.
Jimmy Van Heusen
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Jimmy Van Heusen, also named James Van Heusen, was an American composer. He renamed himself at age 16, after the shirt makers Phillips-Van Heusen and his close friends called him Chet. Studying at Cazenovia Seminary and Syracuse University, he became friends with Jerry Arlen, with the elder Arlens help, Van Heusen wrote songs for the Cotton Club revue, including Harlem Hospitality. He then became a staff pianist for some of the Tin Pan Alley publishers, collaborating with lyricist Eddie DeLange, on songs such as Heaven Can Wait, So Help Me, and Darn That Dream, his work became more prolific, writing over 60 songs in 1940 alone. It was in 1940 that he teamed up with the lyricist Johnny Burke, Burke and Van Heusen moved to Hollywood and wrote for stage musicals and films throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Swinging on a Star. Their songs were featured in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court. He was also a pilot of some accomplishment, he worked, using his birth name, Van Heusen then teamed up with lyricist Sammy Cahn. Their three Academy Awards for Best Song were won for All the Way from The Joker Is Wild, High Hopes from A Hole in the Head, and Call Me Irresponsible from Papas Delicate Condition. Van Heusen wrote the music for five Broadway musicals, Swingin the Dream, Nellie Bly, Carnival in Flanders, Skyscraper and he became an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971. Van Heusen composed over 800 songs of which 50 songs became standards, Van Heusen songs are featured in over two hundred and twenty films. Although not considered handsome by conventional standards, Van Heusen was known to be quite a ladies man. James Kaplan in his book Frank The Voice wrote, He played piano beautifully, wrote gorgeously poignant songs about romance. he had a fat wallet, he flew his own plane, he never went home alone. Van Heusen was once described by Angie Dickinson, You would not pick him over Clark Gable any day, in his 20s he began to shave his head when he started losing his hair, a practice ahead of its time. He once said I would rather write songs than do anything else -- even fly. It was Van Heusen who rushed Sinatra to the hospital after Sinatra, in despair over the breakup of his marriage to Ava Gardner, however, this event was never mentioned by Van Heusen in any radio or print interviews given by him. Van Heusen married for the first time in 1969, at age 56 and he died in Rancho Mirage, California, in 1990 from complications following a stroke, at the age of 77. Van Heusen is buried near the Sinatra family in Desert Memorial Park, in Cathedral City and his grave marker reads Swinging On A Star. Van Heusen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song 14 times in 12 different years, and won four times, in 1944,1957,1959, and 1963
25.
Rock and roll
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While elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s. For the purpose of differentiation, this deals with the first definition. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars, a double bass or string bass or an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply a style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music and it went on to spawn various genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply rock music or rock. The term rock and roll now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopædia Britannica, on the hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s. In 1934, the song Rock and Roll by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round, in 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term rock-and-roll to describe upbeat recordings such as Rock Me by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. By 1943, the Rock and Roll Inn in South Merchantville, in 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase to describe it. The origins of rock and roll have been debated by commentators. The migration of former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers such as St. The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called race music, particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. The 1940s saw the use of blaring horns, shouted lyrics. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll. Rock and roll arrived at a time of technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone. It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock. Because the development of rock and roll was a process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously the first rock. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
26.
Yip Harburg
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Edgar Yipsel Yip Harburg was an American popular song lyricist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards Brother, Can You Spare a Dime, April in Paris, and Its Only a Paper Moon, as well as all of the songs in The Wizard of Oz, including Over the Rainbow. He was known for the commentary of his lyrics, as well as his liberal sensibilities. He championed racial and gender equality and union politics and he also was an ardent critic of religion. Harburg, the youngest of four surviving children, was born Isidore Hochberg on the Lower East Side of New York City on April 8,1896 and his parents, Lewis Hochberg and Mary Ricing, were Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from Russia. Isidore later adopted the name Edgar Harburg, and came to be best known as Edgar Yip Harburg. He attended Townsend Harris High School, where he and Ira Gershwin, after World War I, Harburg returned to New York, and graduated from City College, which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him, in 1921. After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers, at this point, Harburg and Ira Gershwin agreed that Yip should start writing song lyrics. To the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia and this song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of the Great Depression. And he — there were eleven screenwriters on that — and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence, but he doesn’t get credit for that. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing, working in Hollywood did not stop Harburgs career on Broadway. It was made into a film in 1968 starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, although never a member of the Communist Party he had been involved in radical groups, and he was blacklisted. Harburg was unable to travel abroad during this period, as his passport had been revoked, the New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia. In 1966, songwriter Earl Robinson sought Harburgs help for the song Hurry Sundown, the song was intended for the film Hurry Sundown, but was not used in the film. It was, however, recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary for their 1966 album The Peter, Paul, the song was released as a single in 1967, and reached #37 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording and he died in a head-on collision when he swerved into oncoming traffic on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California on March 5,1981. In 1940 Harburg won an Oscar, shared with Harold Arlen, for Best Music, Original Song for The Wizard of Oz. In addition, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song, along with Arlen, for Cabin in the Sky, Harburg was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972
27.
Over the Rainbow
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Over the Rainbow is a ballad, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz and was sung by actress Judy Garland, the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garlands signature song, as well as one of the most enduring standards of the 20th century. Dorothys Aunt Em tells her to find yourself a place where you wont get into any trouble and this prompts Dorothy to walk off by herself, musing to Toto, Some place where there isnt any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto and its not a place you can get to by a boat, or a train. Behind the moon, beyond the rain, at which point she begins singing. The song is one on the Songs of the Century list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America. The American Film Institute also ranked Over the Rainbow the greatest movie song of all time on the list of AFIs 100 Years.100 Songs and it was adopted by American troops in Europe in World War II, as a symbol of the United States. Garland performed the song for the troops as part of a 1943 performance, in April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing lyricist Yip Harburgs accomplishments, the stamp features the opening lyric from Over the Rainbow. The song was used as a wakeup call in the STS-88 Space shuttle mission in Flight Day 4. The song was honored with the 2014 Towering Song Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame and was sung at its dinner on June 12,2014 by Jackie Evancho. In April 2016, The Daily Telegraph listed the song as number 8 on its list of the 100 greatest songs of all time, the Over the Rainbow sequence and the entirety of the Kansas scenes were directed by King Vidor, though he was not credited. At the start of the film, part of the song is played by the MGM orchestra over the opening credits, a reprise of the song was deleted after being filmed. An additional chorus was to be sung by Dorothy while she was locked in a room in the witchs castle, helplessly awaiting death as the witchs hourglass ran out. In that extremely intense and fear-filled rendition, Dorothy weeps her way through it, unable to finish, concluding with a tear-filled, Im frightened, another instrumental version is played in the underscore in the final scene, and over the closing credits. On October 7,1938, Judy Garland first recorded the song on the MGM soundstages, in September 1939, a studio recording of the song, not from the actual film soundtrack, was recorded and released as a single by Decca Records. In March 1940, that recording was included on a Decca 78-RPM four-record studio cast album entitled The Wizard of Oz. It was not until 1956, when MGM released the soundtrack album from the film. The 1956 soundtrack release was timed to coincide with the premiere of the movie
28.
Stormy Weather (1933 song)
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Stormy Weather is a 1933 song written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters first sang it at The Cotton Club night club in Harlem in 1933 and recorded it that year, also 1933, for the first time in history the entire floor revue from Harlems Cotton Club went on tour, playing theatres in principal cities. The song has since been performed by artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Etta James, Dinah Washington, Clodagh Rodgers, leo Reismans orchestra version had the biggest hit on records, although Ethel Waterss recorded version also sold well. Stormy Weather was featured in the 1943 movie of the same name, the song tells of disappointment, as the lyrics, Dont know why theres no sun up in the sky, show someone pining for her man to return. The weather is a metaphor for the feelings of the singer, stormy weather since my man and I aint together, keeps raining all the time. The original handwritten lyrics, along with a painting by Ted Koehler, were featured on the Antiques Roadshow on 24 January 2011, the lyrics show a number of crossings out and corrections. Ethel Waterss recording of the song in 1933 was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003, also in 2004, Hornes version finished at #30 on AFIs 100 Years.100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. Stormy Weather was released as a single by the industrial hip-hop group Fats Comet, duke Ellington recorded an instrumental version of the song in 1933 and another version with singer Ivie Anderson in 1940. He also featured a version with Ivy Anderson in his 1933 Paramount short film Bundle of Blues. Ethel Waters 1933 The Golden Gate Quartet recorded the song for Bluebird Records in 1939, Lena Horne first recorded the song in 1941 for RCA Victor. In 1943, she recorded another version of Stormy Weather for the movie of the same name, Horne recorded the song at least five times throughout her career. Hornes version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000, Judy Garland recorded a studio version of the song for her London Sessions with Capitol. Most notable is her performance of the song recorded for the Grammy Award-winning album Judy at Carnegie Hall. Roy Hamilton, studio album Have Blues Must Travel and it was arranged by Marion Evans Billy Eckstine, studio album Once More with Feeling. It was arranged by Billy May Charles Mingus recorded the song on the Mingus, album for Candid Records Etta James, on her 1960 album for Chess Records, At Last. Bing Crosby on the 1965 album Bing Crosbys Treasury - The Songs I Love Ringo Starr recorded the song in 1969 for his debut album. Sylvia Brooks, on her 2012 album, Restless Viola Wills covered the song in 1982, jeff Lynne recorded a version of the song for his 1990 solo album, Armchair Theatre. Carmel recorded a version for her 1984 album, The Drum is Everything, bob Dylan - Triplicate The chapter Stormy Weather in the book Stardust Melodies, The Biography of Twelve of Americas Most Popular Songs by Will Friedwald
29.
That Old Black Magic
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That Old Black Magic is a 1942 popular song first recorded and released as a single by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. The music was written by Harold Arlen, with the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Mercer wrote the lyrics with Judy Garland in mind, who was, on occasion, an intimate partner. Garland recorded the song for Decca Records in 1942, the Glenn Miller recording was released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-1523-A, with A Pink Cocktail For a Blue Lady as the B side. The vocals were by Skip Nelson and the Modernaires, Glenn Miller recorded the song on July 15,1942. The release was Glenn Millers last #1 hit and it charted in 1943, spending 14 weeks on the Billboard magazine charts, peaking at position #1 for the week of May 29. The song was sung in the Paramount Pictures musical comedy film Star Spangled Rhythm by Johnnie Johnston, the Margaret Whiting recording was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 126. It charted in 1943, spending 1 week at #10 on the Billboard chart, Ella Fitzgerald recorded this on her Verve double-album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook. Kennedy the night before Kennedy was inaugurated as the thirty-fifth President of the United States, bing Crosby sang the song in an extraordinarily slow classic crooner style in the World War II era film Here Come the Waves. A1950 recording on Mercury Records by Billy Daniels gave him the moniker The Old Black Magic Man for the rest of his career, the Sammy Davis Jr. recording was released by Decca Records as catalog number 29541. It charted in 1955 and spent six weeks on the Billboard charts, Sammy Davis Jr. performs That Old Black Magic during a guest appearance on the television series I Dream of Jeannie. Marilyn Monroe famously sang the song in her film Bus Stop and her character Cheree is singing the song to an audience who is not listening and talking loudly, until Don Murray quiets them all down. In 1963, Jerry Lewis also sang his version as suave hipster Buddy Love in his film The Nutty Professor. The duet recorded by Louis Prima and Keely Smith was released as a single in 1958 on the Capitol label and it reached a peak of eighteen on the Billboard Hot 100. This particular version was performed on Sam and Friends by Sam and Kermit the Frog, Sam performing as Prima and Kermit dressing in drag and this sequence became one of the most well-known episodes of Sam and Friends. The said duet version was rearranged and used as music in the swimsuit competition in the semifinals of the Miss Universe 1996 beauty pageant held in Las Vegas. Bobby Rydell had his version released as a single on Cameo in 1961 and it reached number twenty-one on the Hot 100. Johnny Mercer recorded his version for his album My Huckleberry Friend, the tune was featured as background music in the sequel Star Trek III, The Search for Spock. Jaye P. Morgan guest starred on The Muppet Show in which she, as part of his album, My Name is Allan, Allan Sherman sang a parody of this song called That Old Back Scratcher
30.
Come Rain or Come Shine
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Come Rain or Come Shine is a popular music song written by Harold Arlen, who composed the music, and Johnny Mercer, who wrote the lyrics. The song was written for the musical St. Louis Woman, recordings were made in 1946 by Sy Oliver, Dinah Shore, Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes, Margaret Whiting, and Ray Charles. Although the song did not actually make the charts in the period following its publication, the Sy Oliver/Tommy Dorsey version was recorded on January 31,1946. The recording was released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-1819, the Margaret Whiting version was recorded on February 17,1946. The recording was released by Capitol Records as catalog number 247, the Dinah Shore version was recorded on March 18,1946. The recording was released by Columbia Records as catalog number 36971, Dinah performed it on the May 16,1946 edition of the Birds Eye Open House radio programme. The Helen Forrest/Dick Haymes version was recorded on April 14,1946, the recording was released by Decca Records as catalog number 23548. Sarah Vaughan recorded it for Columbia in 1950 with her first husband George Treadwell, Helen Forrest recorded it by herself in 1950. Jo Stafford recorded the song for two different albums, marlene Dietrich has a version wherein she repeats the lyrics in spoken word between sung variations. Frank Sinatra recorded it three times,1953,1962 and 1993, Dinah Washington performed this song on her live album Dinah Jams. Dick Haymes made a recording in 1955. Billie Holiday recorded it in on August 25,1955, for her album Music for Torching, Georgia Gibbs recorded a version of it in 1955. Sammy Davis, Jr. recorded it in 1955, patti Page on her album Music for Two in Love. Judy Garland recorded the song on March 3,1956 for her album Judy, conducted by Nelson Riddle and it also appears on her legendary concert album Judy at Carnegie Hall. Claire Austin recorded a version on her album When Your Lover Has Gone on the Bethlehem label, Jerry Lewis recorded a version of this song as a B-side to Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody in 1956 on the Decca label. Count Basie and his orchestra recorded it in 1956, perry Como recorded the song in 1958 for his album Saturday Night with Mr. C. Connie Francis did it in 1959, benny Goodman recorded it in 1959. Ray Charles recorded the song on his album The Genius of Ray Charles and this version charted in both 1960 and 1968
