 |
Jerome Kern Father of the American Musical by Jim McCarthy |
[editor's note - Most of you are probably aware that a lot of our barbershop music has it's roots in various Broadway musicals, based on the efforts of various American composers. In this article, Jim McCarthy has provided us an interesting insight to one of the greatest of these American song writers.] |
Jerome Kern is credited with writing and collaborating with other musicians on about 700 songs during his life-time (January 27, 1885 - November 11, 1945). His works established the musical as we know it today.
In 1885, he was born in New York, to a first generation Jewish-German family. After taking piano lessons at a young age, his mother sensed a musical talent and encouraged him to pursue this natural gift. He attended the New York College of Music, then worked as a song-plugger and in-house composer for a New York publisher. At 19, like a number of his musician colleagues, he went to London where he learned about musical comedy and European operetta. It was in England that he met his wife Eva, and they were married there in 1910.
Later he joined forces, and collaborated with, an Englishman, Guy Bolton, and also P.G. Wodehouse and they wrote entirely new shows for the Broadway stage. Instead of writing about royalty, clowns and gods, which was the standard of that day, they wrote songs about real people with shows such as Very Good Eddie, Oh Boy and Oh, Lady! Lady!
In the 1930's, Kern composed for 'talkie' films, which included Swingtime starnng Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in 1936 and won him an Oscar for the song, The Way You Look Tonight.
The Broadway musical as we know it today was beginning to evolve. In 1927, Jerome Kern collaborated with Oscar Hammerstein II and they wrote their famous Showboat musical which included the songs Ol' Man River and Can't Help Loving Dat Man. And as most of we Greater Pittsburgh Chapter members know, our very own, talented bass singer, John Power, sings a rendition of Ol' Man River second to none.
Kern wrote generally for musical theatre, but the richness of his compositions lent themselves to the jazz mode, which typically emphasizes improvisation based on harmonic structure. Many jazz musicians have adopted Kern compositions and made them standard tunes.
Some of his stage productions became the basis for films such as The Cat And The Fiddle and Roberta.
Other Kern songs you may be familiar with include such memorable tunes as Make Believe, Bill, All The Things You Are, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, The Last Time I Saw Paris, They Didn't Believe Me, Pick Yourself Up and The Way You Looked Tonight.
Recently we have been learning (relearning)
If You knew Suzie and I Want A Girl. Here is some short background on these two songs:
If You Knew Suzie (Like I Know Suzie) was from the 1925 musical revue Big Boy. The music was by Joseph Meyer & Stephen W. Ballantine with lyrics by George Buddy DeSylva. Big Boy was an Al Jolson Broadway musical, starring Jolson as Gus, a stable boy on a southern plantation.
Later, If You Knew Suzie became theme lyrics for the Eddie Cantor (shown at the right) TV
Comedy Theatre. Cantor had a few variations to the words as we know them, such as; I had a mustache as cute as a pup, Suzie
kissed me and burned the darn thing up and ...out in
public, she's meek and mild, but in the parlour, mother
dear, come save your child.
I Want A Girl (just like the girl who married dear old Dad) was written by Harry Von Tilzer in 1911 with words provided by William Dillon. Von Tilzer was born in 1872 in Detroit, Michigan as Harry Gummbinsky, which was then shortened to Harry Gumm, until he ran away with a traveling circus at age 14, playing piano and calliope, and took the name "Von Tilzer." Von Tilzer continued playing in Burlesque and Vaudeville shows for many years. He eventually became one of the best known Tin Pan Alley song writers with hits which included, Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage. Wait 'Til The Sun Shines Nellie, All Alone, I Love My Wife, But Oh You Kid!, They Always Pick On Me and many others.
I Want a Girl has a second verse, not on our barbershop arrangement, which goes:
By the old mill stream there sits a couple old and gray though years have rolled away, their hearts are young and gay, Mother dear looks up at Dad, with love-light in her eye, he steals a kiss, a fond embrace, while evening breezes sigh.
Wonder why we omitted that?
Songs We Sing - by Tom Koch
Back to page 9
Forward to page 11