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1. Music of the Depression Blues and Jazz in the 1930s
Section II
2. Blues: Rural and Urban Blues art form rooted in rural African American oral tradition
Often an expression of sadness, isolation, loss
Storytelling
Poetic form of multiple stanzas, three lines each
1st and 2nd lines often identical, same length, usually rhymed
3rd line could be a refrain, repeated in each stanza, or a rhyming line that completed, explained, or responded to the first two lines
Universal woes found in an individuals daily life
Lyrics good love gone bad, evil women & worse men, alcohol, poverty, death, prejudice, despair, hope, the devil, and search for better days
3. Blues: Rural and Urban Melodic elements
Blue notes
Flattened (bent, or shaded) third, fifth, and seventh scale degrees
Rhythm
A base of an unfailingly steady beat
Vocal rhythms and instrumental countermelodies
Frequent syncopations and rubato, often in conversational speech-rhythm
4. Blues: Rural and Urban Twelve-bar harmonic structure
Call and response
Fills
Improvisation
Freedom and spontaneity
Inflections, vocal color, bent pitches, growls, moans, slides
Interplay between singer and instrument, singer and listeners, were improvisatory
5. Blues: Rural and Urban Improvised practice
Crushed notes
The playing of two adjacent keys at once to get the feel of the quarter tone between
6. History and Social Function Ring shout
Religious tradition developed during era of slavery
improvisation, call and response, movement
Work song
Sung by groups of black laborers in fields
Emphatic rhythms and steady tempo
Alternating forces, regular return to repeated refrain, variation in form
7. History and Social Function Field holler
More spontaneous than work song
Some brief, others long
Irregular phrases
Rubato tempo
Melody starts high, goes low, wavelike contour
8. History and Social Function Vaudeville & minstrel show
Stock characters, stereotypes of blacks
Social and political satire
In some ways, similar to court jester
Started out all white; after Civil War, many casts were all-black
9. History and Social Function Songsters
Traveling singers, first to disseminate the blues
Original Dixieland Jazz Band
New Orleans Rhythm Kings
10. History and Social Function Mississippi Delta in the 1890s
Large and close-knit AA population
Musical expression was a central vehicle for heartfelt commentary on economic hardship and the frustrations of prejudice and discrimination
11. Country Blues vs. Classic Blues Country Blues, downhome blues, or folk blues
Rooted in rural life
Itinerant male singers with guitar or harmonica who played at social gatherings
Fish fries, picnics, juke joints, brothels
Impromptu rhythm instruments
Spoons, washboard, etc.
12. History and Social Function Classic blues, vaudeville blues, or urban blues
This version first brought wide recognition and commercial viability
Spread first through professional touring shows and sheet music, then via recording
Professional managers arranging performance schedules
Dominated by female singers trained in vaudeville
Sang in polished stage acts or in a recording studio, backed by paid jazz musicians
13. History and Social Function Tin Pan Alley blues
White popular song establishment borrowing characteristic idioms from the blues
Flatted third scale degrees, sometimes 12-bar progression, glissandos, syncapation
George Gershwin
Rhapsody in Blue, 1924
14. Classic Blues: W.C. Handy1873 1958 Father of the blues
Responsible for bringing blues style to wide audience
Commercial success of blues
Born in Alabama
Played cornet in minstrel troupe, became bandleader
1903, train platform, Mississippi Delta, hears the blues for the first time
15. W.C. Handy Memphis Blues written in 1909, pub. 1912
1914 St. Louis Blues
Yellow Dog Blues, Joe Turner Blues, Beale Street Blues, Aunt Hagars Children, Atlanta Blues, Loveless Love
Harry Pace
Started recording in 1920
St. Louis Blues now a Standard
16. St. Louis BluesW.C. Handy Sung by Billie Holiday the wail of a lovesick woman for her lost man using black phraseology and dialect to enhance the mood, believing that this language often implies more than well-chosen English can express.
Handy recalled once hearing a drunken women muttering as she stumbled down the street: Ma mans got a heart like a rock cast in de sea.
17. St. Louis Blues Chorus of song:
Got de St. Louis Blues jes blue as ah can be,
Dat man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea,
Or else he wouldnt gone so far from me.
Frequent use of lowered (minor) third in a major key, producing blue notes
Many different versions of original chord progression, but always:
Tonic harmony, in one form or another, in measures 1, 7, and 11
Subdominant in measure 5
Dominant in measure 9
18. St. Louis Blues Handy tried to make St. Louis Blues a hit by departing from well-worn paths rather than following them
Starting with real emotion, cut to the native blues pattern
Hoped to combine ragtime syncopation with a real melody in the spiritual tradition
Included a second section with a tango beat
Also used for instrumental introduction to entire piece
Tango was a popular new dance in Memphis at the time
Third section, labeled chorus, was based on the Jogo Blues, a number he had published separately in 1913
19. St. Louis Blues (clip) Twelve-bar blues and variations on em!
I I I I
IV IV I I
V V I I
Names of pitches, chords, notation
20. Recordings and Early Female Blues Singers Mamie Smith records Crazy Blues (by Perry Bradford) with her Jazz Hounds
75,000 copies sold in first two months
Gertrude Ma Rainey, Edith Wilson, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter
All professionals working in vaudeville and musical stage
Dressing and acting the part of queens of the blues, accompanied by piano or small jazz group
Race Records
Meaning black musicians performing black music for black listeners
21. Bessie Smith Dubbed Queen of the Blues by media and Empress of the Blues by Columbia Records
Powerful voice, strong stage personality
Traveled in style, with personal train car and entourage (posse)
$2,000 a week contract with Columbia Records (more than the average family made in a year)
First recording, Down Hearted Blues on the A-side and Gulf Coast Blues on the B-side, sold 780,000 copies in first six months
these recordings must have appealed to audiences across racial lines
22. Country Blues Charlie Patton
known for his slide guitar technique, his complex rhythms and lyrics, his rugged, rasping voice, and his wild life as a drinker, a carouser, a womanizer, [and] a brawler.
Son House
vocal techniques included moans, shouts, falsetto, and humming; his guitar playing featured tremolos and bottleneck slides
23. Country Blues Blind Lemon Jefferson
recorded about eighty songs between 1925 and 1929
Blind Blake
Also recorded about eighty blues songs
known for a bright, ragtime-influenced guitar style and elaborate finger picking
though many of his lyrics were light in tone, others were exceptionally serious, treating topics like lynching and police brutality
24. 1930s: The Great Depressions Effects On The Blues Blues craze dies down
Recording decreased significantly
Good-paying stage performances waned, with stars struggling
Country blues goes in several directions
One strain stays the same
Another combined northern with southern styles
Others blended blues with jazz or other styles
25. 1930s: The Great Depressions Effects On The Blues Nobody Knows You when Youre Down and Out
Appropriate for falling star, Bessie Smith
17 minute video, St. Louis Blues
Only known video footage of Bessie Smith
Columbia cancels contract due to falling record sales
Smith updates style to adapt to Swing Era
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Tea for Two
No more wigs and feathers; goes to sleek, elegant look of satin evening gowns and wept-back hair
Replaces Billy Holiday at a Harlem club but dies in car crash in 1937
26. 1930s: The Great Depressions Effects On The Blues Classic blues ultimately absorbed into jazz
as Bessie Smiths generation
aged, the featured spot they had held was taken over by the jazz band itself, and singers became attached to bands, instead of the reverse.
The era of the classic blues singer had ended shortly after the stock market crashed
27. Downhome Blues in the 1930s Affected less dramatically than classic, because it never got as big
Recording declined or shut down entirely
race records no more
Many kept recording:
Leroy Carr, Scrapper Blackwell, Tama Red, Georgia Tom Dorsey
Blind Blake dropped, Charley Patton considered outdated
28. Downhome Blues in the 1930s Country blues became less . . . country
Rough, male soloists with 2 or 3 instruments
Based in large cities, but retained unpolished rural connotationsdistinct from hybrid show-business aspects of classic blues/jazz
Leroy Carr and Scrapper Balckwell
Lyrics had a considered, reflective quality, colored by disappointment rather than bitterness.
29. Robert Johnson (1911-1938) (clip) Sold his soul to the devil in order to play better
30 recorded songs gave him tremendous posthumous fame and influence
highly introverted, sometimes obsessive blues, with a whining guitar sound and throbbing beat while voice was taut and often strained, and he sometimes used falsetto effectively
his guitar playing combined dramatic rhythms with agitated whining effects produced by a bottleneck slide.
1990 release of complete recordings sold 500,000 copies
30. Northward Shift Record companies no longer could afford to go south to find artists/music
Decca Records takes lead in AA music
Chicago blues
Big Bill Broonzy
Helped create a Southside Chicago sound known as urban blues
Muddy Waters
Father of Modern Chicago Blues
31. Two new types of Blues in Chicago Hokum (also called party blues)
a combination of rural wit, sly urban sophistication and bawdiness
entertainment without serious intent, which mildly ridiculed country manners while helping southern immigrants to adjust to urban life.
Unabashedly obscene lyrics
Bill Broozny
Thomas A. Dorsey (Georgia Tom)
The future father of gospel music
Tampa Red
32. Boogie-woogie
Piano style
Frantic pace, angular accompaniments
OMG! I cant believe they only have a single paragraph on this . . .
33. Jazz and Blues Beginning of swing era
Benny Moten, Count Basie head famous jazz orchestrain Kansas City
Jazz with a lot of glues influence
34. Lead Belly, Alan Lomax, and Blues as Folk Music black Americans taste shifted toward the new urban blues of Chicago and blues-influenced jazz of New York and Kansas City
white urban intellectuals in the 1930s discovered downhome blues
Folk music collectors
Corresponded with rise of left-leaning cultural movement that values the common man
Laid foundation for folk music revival of the 1960s
35. John Lomaxa main collector White, Mississippi-born, Texas-raised, Harvard-educated scholar
Texas cowboy songs in 1910
Curator of the Archive of American Folkson at the Library of Congress in 1933
John and son, Alan, make field recordings throughout the South and Southwest, funded by the Library of Congress
Discover Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) at a prison in Louisiana in 1934
36. Lead Belly (clip) Pardoned by the Louisiana governor, moved to New York City, John Lomaxs chauffeur
Performed folk-blues, made numerous commercial recordings (repertoire of 500 songs)
work songs, ballads, popular songs, blues
Twelve-string guitar
Big with white, urban audience
Blacks considered his style out-dated
1935 1940, recorded a large portion of his repertoire for the Library of Congress archives
Performed at Carnegie Hall in 1938 in From Spirituals to Swing organized by John Hammond
Robert Johnson was supposed to play, but the devil wouldnt let him make an appearance
37. Blacks, Whites, and the Importance of Blues in the 1930s when blues gained white enthusiasts it lost black audiences.
white intellectuals, especially those on the political left, wanted a symbol of the pure, folk quality of African-American life, and Lead Belly met this need
Wrote The Bourgeois Blues, which criticized the pretensions of the upper-middle class
Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison
Writers who allude to blues in prose and poetry
38. Blacks, Whites, and the Importance of Blues in the 1930s Blues was also important as the primary artistic expression of a minority culture: it was created mainly by black working-class men and women, and, through its simplicity, sensuality, poetry, humor, irony and resignation transmuted to aggressive declamation, it mirrored the qualities and the attitudes of black America for three-quarters of a century. Paul Oliver, Blues scholar
39. Midnight Special Texan black song tradition
Title refers to a train whose light shone into inmates cells as it passed by a prison at night
Lead Bellys singing is full-throated with rough vibrato
Not nasal, whining, or falsetto timbres sometimes favored by slide guitar players
Playing is intricate, rhythmic
40. Midnight Special
41. Midnight Special Lyrics Yonder comes Miss Rosie. How in the world do you know?Well, I know her by the apron and the dress she wore.Umbrella on her shoulder, piece of paper in her hand,Well, I'm callin' that Captain, 'Turn a-loose my man.'Let the Midnight Special shine her light on me.Oh let the Midnight Special shine her ever-lovin' light on me.When you gets up in the morning, when that big bell ring.You go marching to the table, you meet the same old thing.Knife and fork are on the table, ain't nothing in my pan.And if you say a thing about it, you have a trouble with the man.Let the Midnight Special shine her light on me.Oh let the Midnight Special shine her ever-lovin' light on me.
If you ever go to Houston, boy, you better walk right,And you better not squabble and you better not fight.Benson Crocker will arrest you, Jimmy Boone will take you down. You can bet your bottom dollar that you're Sugarland bound.Let the Midnight Special shine her light on me.Oh let the Midnight Special shine her ever-lovin' light on me.Well, jumping Little Judy, she was a mighty fine girl.She brought jumping to this whole round world.Well, she brought it in the morning just a while before day.Well, she brought me the news that my wife was dead.That started me to grieving, whooping, hollering, and crying.And I began to worry about my very long time.Let the Midnight Special shine her light on me.Oh let the Midnight Special shine her ever-lovin' light on me.
42. Jazz: Origins Originated in New Orleans in first decades of twentieth century
Combination of blues and ragtime elements
blends improvised and notated music, popular and classical training, and casual attitudes with musical discipline
43. Music in New Orleans Prior to 1910 Vibrant port city, rivaled Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston as a commercial and cultural center
racial diversity and its proximity to the Caribbean
French, Spanish, Caribbean, slaves
Creoles of Color
considered themselves culturally European and superior to the more recently freed, English-speaking blacks
44. Music in New Orleans Prior to 1910 European high art (symphonies and opera)
Military bands, dance music, folk music, neighborhood parades
Part of classical music circuit
New York City, Havana
Creole musicians (Jelly Roll Morton & Sidney Bechet) started to combine Creole music with blues and other popular music
45. Brass Bands: Marches and Arrangements Brass and wind bands played music for people long before radio and phonograph
Parades, picnics, funerals, political gatherings
Indoor bands played waltzes and ballads at high-society parties
Strings, pianos, banjos, guitars
46. Ragtime (insert clip) Scott Joplin (1868 1917)
Father had been a slave, mother a free black
Learned classical technique & read music notation
German-born teacher
Sang in quartet, played violin & cornet
Ragtime a syncopated, disjunct melodic line occurring above a rhythmically steady bass consisting of a low octave alternating with a mid-range chord
47. Ragtime Joplin moved to New York City
Maple Leaf Rag
The Entertainer
National fad for ragtime
Heard in bars, brothels, and black areas of city
Jelly Roll Morton developed further
Irving Berlin
Alexanders Ragtime Band
That Mysterious Rag
48. Jazz Emerges in New Orleans Creole Band & Original Dixieland Band
Incorporated ragtime syncopation
Dance halls & dance parties
Dances, marches, ragtime & early jazz
Shared traits:
Dances & marches have steady tempo, regular meter, and phrases of equal lengthusually four or eight measures
Two or four phrases make a strain
Expressiveness and interest came through other means
Dynamics could vary, rhythm and contour of melody could be unique in mood or character
Contrast in textures, melodies, moods, rhythms
49. Jazz Emerges in New Orleans Blue notes
Slides
Improvisation over fixed chords
Remember blues tradition:
Three phrases
Statement/restatement/contrast; a-a-b poetic structure
50. Dixieland Jazz & Spread from New Orleans Original Dixieland Jazz Band
All white
From New Orleans
Toured in Chicago, New York 1910s
Three standard melody instruments
Cornet or trumpet
Clarinet or sax
Trombone
Drum set for beat
Wood blocks, gourds, cowbells, gongs, and other percussion
Piano provided harmonies, rhythms, riffs (short, repeated phrases that could accompany solos), sometimes complemented or replaced by banjo or guitar
Polyphonic texture impression of freedom and spontinaity
51. Louis Armstrong and the Hot Sound (clip) Agile technique & powerful sound
Influenced by Joe King Oliver
Moved to Chicago at Joes request in 1923
Unsurpassed technique
Unprecedented range
Extraordinary ability to improvise
Hot sound
Unevenly played eighth notes
Smoother four-beat pulse
Blues inflections
Regular harmonic pattern
52. Armstrong Transformed jazz from traditional Dixieland style to soloist-based, rhythmically charged swing style
If youve been keeping score, weve gone from vocal soloists, to bands where there is no star, back to instrumental soloists who are the starin this case, Louis and his trumpet
53. Fletcher Henderson Makes it big leading an orchestra in NYC
54. Stride First genuine jazz piano style
New genre of solo piano music
Evolved in Harlem
More fluid, less rigidly syncopated
James P. Johnson & Fats Waller influenced . . .
Duke Ellington & Art Tatum
55. Paul Whiteman San Francisco & Los Angeles
56. George Gerswin (clip) Symphonic jazz
Rhapsody in Blue (fantasia 2000?)
Performed in Carnegie Hall a sanctuary of western classical music
Concerto in F
Porgy and Bess
Highly successful songwriting career
57. Kansas City Dance bands
Benny Moten
Count Basie
58. Big Bands and Swing (clip) Prohibition repealed in 1933
Big Bands
10 to 15 instrumentalists
big band jazz
Sweet jazz
Smooth, elegant written-out arrangements of pop songs
Popular with white audiences
Hot jazz
More of the AA style
59. Swing Smoother than boom-chuck, boom-chuck
Overlying rhythms often occurred between the beats
Skimming along over the pulse, rather than being bound to it
Lighter, drier, more flowing
Eighth note pairs played unevenly, more like a triplet; 1st 8th longer than 2nd
Uneven triplet figures or dotted 8th with a 16th
60. Benny Goodmans orchestra Broadcast live from the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles
NBCLets Dance
Broadcast live every Saturday night
Benny Goodman
Clarinet and saxophone
Collaborated with Gershwin, Whiteman
Employed Fletcher Henderson as arranger
Clean-cut image
61. Performance Conventions of Swing Chorus
Borrowed melody of pop. Song, omitted verse, leaving chorus
Repeated harmonic progression
Chord progressionchanges
Thirty-two-bar form, in four phrases
If not 32, usually twelve-bar blues progression
AABA pattern
melody/repeat/contrasting melody/recapitulate
62. More Swing Conventions 32 (or 12), clear, straight, with few embellishments or alterations
Repeated, with new ideas added, maybe 5 or 6 times
Varying instrumentation, melody, rhythm
Harmony altered within limits
Only basic harmonic outline and tempo remained constant
63. Conventions By 1932, 13-piece dance band was standard
banjo replaced by guitar
Bass replaced by tuba
typical makeup (10 to 15 in same paragraph!):
Three trumpets
Two trombones
Four reed instruments
Saxophones or clarinets
Rhythm section
Piano, drum set, double bass, guitar
Riffs, call and response
Playing as a choir each instrument on different pitch
64. Rhythm Section walking bass technique
Still one pitch per beat; deviate from harmony on weak beats for low-pitched melodic line
Jimmy Blanton
piano
Background beat, or foreground accented chords, sync. rhythm, melodic riffs or fills.
took solos
Guitar
Chord changes in regular rhythm in background
65. Sax Buzz or husky timbre
Single-reed mouthpiece, metal, conical bore
Soprano (Bb)
Alto (Eb)
Tenor (Bb)
Baritone (Eb)
Bass (Bb)
66. Clarinet
67. Solos Tenor & alto sax
Trumpet
piano
68. Duke EllingtonComposer and Bandleader Ellington was born in Washington, D.C., in 1899 into a comfortable middle-class family
Piano, composer, arranger, conductor
Moved to Harlem in 1923
Irving Mills
Manages band
Cotton Club nightly perf. Broadcast nat.
Recording contracts
69. Duke 1931 and most of decade toured US, Canada, & Europe
commanded respect with his dignified bearing, butter-smooth patter, and uncanny ability to draw inspired performances from his road-weary orchestra.
70. The Ellington Effect Give audience what they wanted and providing himself and the musicians with a gratifying level of musical challenge and innovation
Incorporated James Bubber Mileys style into arrangements for the band swing!
knew the strengths and character of each of his performers
71. Ellington Effect similar to what a good coach does Create arrangements that capitalized on performers differences
Musical contrast
Textural changes
Blend sounds into a dynamic ensemble
Skilled in both hot & sweet jazz
Turned to larger forms to transcend the 3-min limit from 78 records
Suites, theater pieces, fantasies
Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue
72. Ellington Effect Went away from standard choir format
Instead of four trombones playing a chord, he combine members from different families to play chords changing what and in what way-class??
73. Jungle Style Come visit our primitive culture
Grass skirts, face paint, faux-tribal dance moves
Minor mode, thick chords
Dramatic dynamic contrasts & special effects
Muted brass, growl effects, notes at the extremes
Ko-ko 1940
74. Train Theme Daybreak Express 1933
Streamlined speed
Special effects
Whistle imitations
Chugging rhythms
75. Mood Pieces Mood Indigo 1930
77. I Got RhythmGeorge Gershwin (discussed later) debuted in the Broadway show Girl Crazy (1930)
Ethel Merman
Piercing, brassy voice
Instrumental introduction
Starts in minor key, ends on a dom. 7th chord
Chorus standard 32-bar form with 2-bar tag
AABA
8 bar phrases, four times, equals 32 bars
Think B for contrasting bridge used to cross from 2nd phrase to 4th phrase
78. Cotton Tail (1940) Uses chord progression from I Got Rhythm
Go to music guide and follow analysis while playing music
79. Special Instrumentalists playing on Cotton Tail Ben Webster on tenor saxophone
Vibrato
Bends notes downward
Intensified already dissonant pitchesbluesy
Higher notes are raspy or stridentgrowl
Jimmy Blanton on Bass
Contagious ability to swing
Revolutionized jazz bass playing
Harry Carney on baritone saxophone
Distinctive, rich tone and deep, precise voice
Agile and rhythmically precise on ungainly instrument
81. Section IIIPopular Song in the 1930s Colonial Song
Religious singing in the colonies
Psalters Psalms of David in rhymed verse form
The Bay Psalm Book 1640
Singing schools New England
Protestants
Mennonites
Moravians
Brass and strings, woodwinds, kettledrums
Performed in style of Handel, Scarlatti, Stamitz, others
Folksong
82. Entertainment and Amateurs Airs
Patriotic songs
Broadsides
Parlor Songs
Chorus in four-part harmony, strophic
Piano, guitar, other
Courtship and love, patriotic, protest and reform, Civil War
Westward expansion, labor, cowboy, gospel, nostalgic
83. Economics of Parlor Songs Lowell Mason father of music education
pianos
Sheet music
Violins and pianos from Sears catalogue
84. Categories and Examples of Parlor Songs Home Sweet Home
Music by Henry Bishop
Lyrics by John Howard Payne
Clari, or The Maid of Milan
Ran in NYC for 70 years!
The Star Spangled Banner
From British pop. tune, To Anacreon in Heaven
Lyrics by Fransis Scott Key (from earlier poem)
85. Civil War Songs The Battle Cry of Freedom
George Frederic Root
Tenting on the Old Campground
Walter Kittredge
Dixie
Dan Emmett
86. Stephen Foster the first person in the United States to earn his living solely through the sale of compositions to the public.
I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming
Gentle Annie
87. Songs of Westward expansion Home on the Range
Daniel E. Kelley
Old Chisholm Trail
88. Labor and Gospel Songs Songsters
labor songs set new words to well-known, pre-existing tunes so that the lyrics alone could be circulated on cheaply printed booklets
Jesus Loves Me
William Bradbury
Blessed Assurance
Fanny Crosby
In the Sweet Bye and Bye
Fillmore Bennett
89. More folksongs Southwest folksongs
Mexican Americans
Native Americans
European Americans
Charles F. Lummis and Arthur Farwell collected
Nostalgic songs
Attempt to recapture an idyllic antebellum past
Silver Threads Among the Gold
Eben Rexford and Hart P. Danks
90. MinstrelsyDan Emmett, Stephen Foster
91. Tin Pan Alley Song Pluggers
Sidewalk musicians, plugging the music
tinny sounding pianos on the sidewalk
George Gershwin
92. NYC & the Music Industry Center of sheet music sales
Supplies: cheap sturdy paper, ink, and printing presses capable of handling music notation
copyists, arrangers, advertisers, and couriers
the entertainment industry consisted of live performances, theater managers and staff, booking agents, and publishers
Sheet music
main means of transmitting songs across the country
Live Performance
Broadway shows and traveling theater companies
93. Typical Song Structure: Verse, Chorus; Changes 18901930 Triple meter (at first), with a waltz feel
Duple meter became standard for TPA and Broadway later
Verse
often unstable, with irregular phrase lengths and modulations
function was to spin a tale or build tension
Chorus
Stable, regular phrases
Tension released or explained
The Band Played On
The Sidewalks of New York
94. Irving Berlin
95. NYC and Hollywood Radio and Film
quickly became the most important means for disseminating popular song
Music on the Radio is free!
Films more economical than shows
Talking pictures
The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson 1927
Film musicals
96. Performers Musicvs Composers Music Composers music
Features fixed in notation for precise reproduction
Performers music
leaves more to the creative discretion of the individual performer
American popular song was unquestionably performers music
Characteristics of voice and nuances of performance became at least as important as the notes on the page.
97. Great Songwriters of the 1930s Jerome Kern
Show Boat (Broadway Musical Oscar Hammerstein)
Cant Help Lovin Dat Man
Ol Man River
Roberta (film musical)
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Swing Time (won Oscar)
The Way You Look Tonight (Fred Astaire and Ginger R.)
98. Richard Rodgers
99. Cole Porter
100. George Gershwin (1898-1937) Born Jacob Gershovitz; brother, Ira
Co-wrote 9 musical comedies
Song-plugger for Remick Music Co.
Swanee 1918
referenced Stephen Fosters song Old Folks at Home
Rhapsody in Blue
Porgie and Bess, an American folk opera
Summertime
101. George Gershwin Hits of 1930s Embraceable You
I Got Rhythm
Of Thee I Sing
Shall We Dance?
Nice Work if You Can Get It
They Cant Take That Away from Me
A Foggy Day
Lets Call the Whole Thing Off
102. Irving Berlin (1888 1989) Lower East Side Of Manhattan
Father died with Irving was 10 years old
Dropped out of school, san on streets, waiter
Alexanders Ragtime Band 1911
Annie Get Your Gun (1946 musical)
Puttin on the Ritz
Top Hat
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
As Thousands Cheer
based on book by Moss Hart
103. Bei Mir Bist Du Schön To Me You Are Beautiful Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn - 1932
Yiddish; hybrid of German and Hebrew
Sholom Secunda, Jacob Jacobs
Sold rights to song for $30 in 1937
English version
Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin
Decca Records
Made Andrew Sisters a household name
104. Andrew Sisters Patty, Maxene, LaVerne
Sang ballads in 30s and 40s
With Glenn Miller Orchestra
With Bing Crosby and Guy Lombardo
Beer Barrel Polka
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
went on to become one of the defining sounds of wartime American culture
first female vocal group to achieve a Gold Record
Only Bing Crosby sold more records during the 40s
105. Andrew Sisters best-selling female vocal group in the history of popular music
between 75-100 million records sold from a little over 600 recorded tunes
113 charted Billboard hits, 46 reaching Top 10 status (more than Elvis Presley or the Beatles)
17 Hollywood films (more than any other singing group in motion picture history)
record-breaking theater and cabaret runs all across America and Europe;
countless appearances on radio shows from 1935 to 1960 (including their own)
106. Bei Mir Bist Du Schön The Andrew sisters recording of Bei Mir Bist Du Schön became a favorite of the Nazis, until it was discovered that the song's composers were of Jewish descent
107. Ella Fitzgerald (1917 1996)sings Bei Mir Bist Du Schön With the Chick Webb Orchestra
Which performed at the Savoy Ballroom
Ella took over band when Chick died in 1939
Ellas repertoire was mainstream and did not take risks
Unlike Billie Holidays Strange Fruit
Sang cheerful Broadway standards, lyrical ballads
108. Bei Mir Bist Du Schön Repetitive form, eight bars per section
Verse consists of two nearly identical sections
A A B A
i ii iv V
Chromatic inflections provide fresh interest
Etc.
109. Bei Mir Bist Du Schön
110. Ella Fitzgerald