The Great American Songbook 1900 1960

The course springs form my perennial love of these songs, as a listener, as a lover of words used with wit and beauty, and as a singer and performer of them for many years.

This will be a ten session course concentrating on the many kinds of songs which came out of the era known as the Golden Age of American song writing.  The emphasis will be partly on the songs themselves and how they work but they will also be seen in their historical and social context.  This was the music of the American urban melting pot with its roots in blues, jazz, vaudeville and Jewish entertainment, an immigrant music which became a national and international music. 

There will also be biographical and stylistic sketches of some of the composers and lyricists, among them Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.   We will see how many of the songs were shaped by the the stage and film musicals for which they were written and discuss  interpretations of the songs by selected performers.  These latter will range from Armstrong and Crosby through Sinatra and Fitzgerald right up to more recent recordings by such as Diana Krall, Rod Stewart and Lady Gaga to demonstrate the enduring appeal of the material.

Start Date 15 September