One of my favorite weekend pastimes is listening to “Saturday Night Swing Session” on WQLN Erie. Hosted by Phil Atteberry, the program features “mainstream jazz with an emphasis on musical history and swing”, drifting at times “toward traditional jazz with some Dixieland… and into classic pop with the likes of Sinatra, Nat Cole and Bing Crosby”.
Recently Phil completed a retrospective on the music of Irving Berlin with three unpublished Berlin songs from the 1970s, excellent songs that were not marketable in the era dominated by Rock and Roll and the Beatles. He commented that Berlin’s last contribution to “the Great American Songbook” was “Old-Fashioned Wedding”, written for a revival of “Annie Get Your Gun” in 1966.
Once I got over being reminded that the music with which I grew up was no longer acceptable by 1970, I got to wondering about the term – “the Great American Songbook”. Wikipedia describes it as the collection of “the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century that have stood the test of time in their life and legacy”.
It is well known that each generation considers the culture that was popular in its late adolescent years to be the all-time best, whether it be music, art, literature, or theater. I certainly consider myself to be fortunate that I was young when popular music peaked in the 1930s and 1940s. I also believe it has gone rapidly downhill ever since. Consequently, I am comfortable defining the Great American Songbook as the best of the popular songs of that era.
Again, using today’s successor to Webster’s Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica as a reference, we learn that Wikipedia has compiled a list of 357 songs that they consider to be candidates for the Great American Songbook, ranging alphabetically from “Accentuate the Positive” to “You’re the Top”. Regardless of one’s agreement with the specific entries in this list, it does provide an excellent vehicle to analyze the overall concept.
Chronologically the list begins in 1911 (“Alexander’s Ragtime Band”) and ends in 1966 (“If My Friends Could See Me Now”). The most productive year was 1930; including “On the Sunny Side of the Street”. The years 1932 (“Night and Day”) and 1934 (“Autumn in New York”) each provided eighteen entries in the Wikipedia list, followed by 1933 (“It’s Only a Paper Moon”) with seventeen and 1935 (“Begin the Beguine”) with sixteen. The Depression apparently motivated Tin Pan Alley.
What about composers? Richard Rodgers placed the largest number of songs on the Wikipedia list – an amazing fifty-one – beginning in 1925 with “Manhattan” and ending in 1959 with “The Sound of Music”. Harry Warren was second, with twenty-seven entries on the list, including “Lullaby of Broadway” and “September In the Rain”. Cole Porter had twenty-three; “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and “Anything Goes” are especially memorable.
Twenty Irving Berlin songs made the list; “God Bless America” and “White Christmas” were massive hits. George Gershwin placed fifteen songs in a relatively short career, from “Stairway to Paradise” in 1922 to “Love Is Here to Stay” in 1938. Jimmy van Heusen and Harold Arlen each had fourteen. Van Heusen’s included “Polka Dots and Moonbeams“ and “Come Fly With Me”; Arlen’s, “That
Old Black Magic” and “Over the Rainbow”.
And what about lyricists? A “standard” song depends as heavily on its lyrics as on its musical quality. The two most prolific lyricists were Lorenz Hart (30 songs on the Wikipedia list) and Oscar Hammerstein II (27), both of whom worked primarily with composer Richard Rodgers. Hart’s song list includes “My Funny Valentine” and “My Romance”. Credit Hammerstein with “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” (composed by Jerome Kern) and “My Favorite Things” (Rodgers).
Next comes Johnny Mercer, with twenty-four songs on the list. Mercer worked with ten different composers (eleven, if you include two songs he composed himself). How about “Satin Doll”, with Duke Ellington, and “Skylark” with Hoagy Carmichael? Then come Cole Porter’s twenty-three entries, for which he also wrote the lyrics. I particularly like “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “It Was Just One of Those Things”.
Irving Berlin (twenty hits on the Wikipedia list) was another full-service composer/lyricist; “Cheek to Cheek” and “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” boast memorable lyrics. Ira Gershwin scored seventeen times, fourteen of them on his brother George’s songs (including “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”). “I Can’t Get Started”, by Vernon Duke proved Ira was an effective partner for other composers.
According to Wikipedia’s “Great American Songbook” list, the most prolific composer is Richard Rodgers; the most prolific lyricist is Lorenz Hart; and the most prolific composer/lyricist is Cole Porter.
Despite Phil Atteberry’s opinion, “Old-Fashioned Wedding” didn’t make the Wikipedia list – I agree with Phil. Actually, I could easily think of a hundred additional songs that belong on the list. I began to compile my “top ten favorites” recently; neither of the first two are on the Wikipedia list. They are “September Song”, by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson and “Early Autumn”, by Ralph Burns and Johnny Mercer.
Like the majority of folks of my generation, I switched channels at half-time of the Super Bowl and avoided “the art form that has become the biggest and most profitable genre in the world”. I respect the taste and sophistication of the generations that have followed ours, but continue to be grateful for the fact that my generation venerated the likes of Rodgers, Gershwin, and Mercer, and still prefers “Stardust” to “Straight Outta Compton”.