Harold Arlen

Harold Arlen

Author: Edward Jablonski

Publisher: UPNE

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 9781555533663

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"The book is filled with arresting detail about Arlen's career. . . This one is required reading for anyone who cares about American popular music, or, it goes without saying, musical theatre." -- Show Music


A Fine Romance

A Fine Romance

Author: David Lehman

Publisher: Schocken

Published: 2009-10-06

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0805242716

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In A Fine Romance, David Lehman looks at the formation of the American songbook—the timeless numbers that became jazz standards, iconic love songs, and sound tracks to famous movies—and explores the extraordinary fact that this songbook was written almost exclusively by Jews. An acclaimed poet, editor, and cultural critic, David Lehman hears America singing—with a Yiddish accent. He guides us through America in the golden age of song, when “Embraceable You,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “My Romance,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Stormy Weather,” and countless others became nothing less than the American sound track. The stories behind these songs, the shows from which many of them came, and the shows from which many of them came, and the composers and lyricists who wrote them give voice to a specifically American saga of love, longing, assimilation, and transformation. Lehman’s analytical skills, wit, and exuberance infuse this book with an energy and a tone like no other: at once sharply observant, personally searching, and attuned to the songs that all of us love. He helps us understand how natural it should be that Wizard of Oz composer Harold Arlen was the son of a cantor who incorporated “Over the Rainbow” into his Sabbath liturgy, and why Cole Porter—the rare non-Jew in this pantheon of musicians who wrote these classic songs shaped America even as America was shaping them. (Part of the Jewish Encounter series)


Arlen and Harburg's Over the Rainbow

Arlen and Harburg's Over the Rainbow

Author: Walter Frisch

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0190467339

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"Over the Rainbow" exploded into worldwide fame upon its performance by Judy Garland in the MGM film musical The Wizard of Oz (1939). Voted the greatest song of the twentieth century in a 2000 survey, it is a masterful, delicate balance of sophistication and child-like simplicity in which composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg poignantly captured the hope and anxiety harbored by Dorothy's character. In Arlen and Harburg's Over the Rainbow, author Walter Frisch traces the history of this song from its inception during the development of The Wizard of Oz's screenplay, to its various reinterpretations over the course of the twentieth century. Through analysis of the song's music and lyrics, this Oxford Keynotes volume provides a close reading of the piece while examining the evolution of its meaning as it traversed widely varying cultural contexts. From its adoption as a jazz standard by generations of pianists, to its contribution to Judy Garland's role as a gay icon, to its reemergence as a chart-topping recording by Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, "Over the Rainbow" continues to engage audiences and performers alike in surprising ways. Featuring a companion website with audio and video supplements, this book leaves no path unexplored as it succeeds in capturing the extent of this song's impact on the world.


Over the Rainbow

Over the Rainbow

Author:

Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing

Published: 2010-03-01

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 1936140004

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Take a magical journey over the rainbow with this unique offering of a beautifully illustrated book accompanied by a CD Whimsical illustrations and a recording of the beloved song by Judy Collins make this the perfect picture book for bedtime or music class Breathtaking and magical artwork by the critically-acclaimed illustrator of Puff The Magic Dragon will carry young readers from a little red farmhouse up over the rainbow, into the sky where bluebirds fly and castles rise high in the clouds, and beyond. The extraordinary soundtrack for this magnificent picture book is performed by the Grammy Award winning Judy Collins, who has recorded what might be the very best version of "Over the Rainbow" ever sung. Her version of this classic will delight and touch the heart of every parent and child who listens. As an added bonus, the enclosed CD also contains two delightful additional songs recorded by Judy Collins: "White Choral Bells" and "I See the Moon."


Harold Arlen and His Songs

Harold Arlen and His Songs

Author: Walter Frisch

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-07-17

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0197503292

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Harold Arlen and His Songs is the first comprehensive book about the music of one of the great song composers of the twentieth century. Arlen wrote many standards of the American Songbook-including "Get Happy," "Over the Rainbow, "Stormy Weather," "Come Rain or Come Shine," and "The Man That Got Away" - that today rank among the best known and loved. Author Walter Frisch places these and other songs in the context of a long career that took Arlen from Buffalo, New York; to Harlem's Cotton Club; to Broadway stages; and to the film studios of Hollywood. Even with their complex melodies, harmonies, and formal structures, Arlen's tunes remain accessible and memorable. As Frisch shows, he blended influences from his father's Jewish cantorial tradition, his experience as a jazz arranger and performer, and peers like Gershwin, Kern, and Berlin. Arlen always emphasized the collaborative nature of songwriting, and he worked with the top lyricists of his day, including Ted Koehler, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer, and Ira Gershwin. Harold Arlen and His Songs is structured around these and Arlen's other partnerships, analyzing individual songs as well as the shows or films in which they appear. The book also treats Arlen's performances of his own music as a vocalist and pianist, through numerous recordings and appearances on radio and television. A final chapter explores the interpretations of his songs by great singers, including many who worked with him, among them Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald.


Listening for America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim

Listening for America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim

Author: Rob Kapilow

Publisher: Liveright Publishing

Published: 2019-11-05

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 1631490303

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“Not since the late Leonard Bernstein has classical music had a combination salesman-teacher as irresistible as Kapilow.” —Kansas City Star Few people in recent memory have dedicated themselves as devotedly to the story of twentieth- century American music as Rob Kapilow, the composer, conductor, and host of the hit NPR music radio program, What Makes It Great? Now, in Listening for America, he turns his keen ear to the Great American Songbook, bringing many of our favorite classics to life through the songs and stories of eight of the twentieth century’s most treasured American composers—Kern, Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, Berlin, Rodgers, Bernstein, and Sondheim. Hardly confi ning himself to celebrating what makes these catchy melodies so unforgettable, Kapilow delves deeply into how issues of race, immigration, sexuality, and appropriation intertwine in masterpieces like Show Boat and West Side Story. A book not just about musical theater but about America itself, Listening for America is equally for the devotee, the singer, the music student, or for anyone intrigued by how popular music has shaped the larger culture, and promises to be the ideal gift book for years to come.


Harold Arlen

Harold Arlen

Author: Edward Jablonski

Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated

Published: 1985-01-21

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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Composer Harold Arlen has written some of the greatest and most popular American songs, favorites of singers and jazz musicians everywhere. This story of his life in show business with the likes of Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer, the Gershwins, and other legends of Hollywood and Broadway provides details about songs, shows, and lively times. IT should firmly position Arlen as a song writer the equal of Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin.


Sweet and Hot

Sweet and Hot

Author: Harold Arlen

Publisher: Samuel French , Incorporated

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13: 9780573600302

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"This razz ma tazz, high energy revue celebrating the songs of one of America's greatest composers has played to rave reviews around the country. Among the three dozen selections included here are "Stormy Weather," "Get Happy," "It's Only a Paper Moon," "Come Rain or Come Shine," "That Old Black Magic" and "Over the Rainbow." The setting suggests a 1930's jazz club, a Coney Island Pier and a Caribbean port"--Publisher.


The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950

The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950

Author: Allen Forte

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780691043999

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In this pathbreaking book, Allen Forte uses modern analytical procedures to explore the large repertoire of beautiful love songs written during the heyday of American musical theater, the Big Bands, and Tin Pan Alley. Covering the work of such songwriters as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Harold Arlen, he seeks to illuminate this extraordinary music indigenous to America by revealing its deeper organizational characteristics. In so doing, he aims to establish it as a unique corpus of music that deserves more intensive study and appreciation by scholars and connoisseurs in the broader fields of American popular music and jazz. Expressing much of the traditional tonality associated with European music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the love songs of the Golden Age are shown to draw on a rich variety of elements--popular harmony, idiomatic lyric-writing, and Afro-American dance rhythms. His analyses of such songs as "Embraceable You" or "Yesterdays" in particular exemplify his ability to convey the sublime, unpretentious simplicity of this great music.