Max Morath - The NPR Curious Listeners Guide to Popular Standards

by Michael Feinstein

D o you ever listen to the songs that people hum or whistle in the street? I do. Psychologists say that a song appearing in our brain at any given moment is a clue about what is really going on in the subconscious mind. You can learn a great deal about people that way. For example, Id avoid someone who sings You Always Hurt The One You Love and embrace the purveyor of Love Is Here To Stay instead. And that is the beauty of the American Popular Standard; a song exists for every conceivable emotion and mood, every nuance of possible behavior.

The greatest creators of this extraordinary body of work always searched for a way to newly express oft-expressed emotions, and my how they succeeded! To cite a few examples by some of my favorite writers: Jerome Kern crafted amazingly complex melodies that send the heart soaring with songs like Long Ago And Far Away, The Song Is You, The Way You Look Tonight, and Till The Clouds Roll By. George Gershwin distilled the vitality and rhythmic swagger of 1920s New York with Fascinating Rhythm, Swonderful, and Ill Build A Stairway To Paradise. As Gershwin matured in the thirties with Of Thee I Sing and They Cant Take That Away From Me, other Depression-era writers made their contributionslike the unjustly neglected Harry Warren, who gave us I Only Have Eyes For You, Lullaby of Broadway, and Remember Me. There are dozens of other great composers that could match Jerry, George, and Harry every step of the way; these just happen to be the melodists who spring to mind at this moment. It is no clich to say that they were all good, because by todays standards, even the worst of them still hold up fine.

The wordsmiths who lyricized these extraordinary melodies were endlessly clever and poignant: Ira Gershwin with his playful lopping off of syllables; Oscar Hammerstein soaring to new heights with his proverbial larks; Dorothy Fields purveying the sarcastic perceptions of a sassy dame; Johnny Mercer, the chameleon who was at home as much with Harold Arlen and Blues In The Night as he was with Henry Mancini and Moon River; E. Y. Harburg with the cutting social commentary of When The Idle Poor Become The Idle Rich and the yearning of Over the Rainbow. Then you get to the double geniuses like Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser, and Cole Porter, who supplied both music and lyrics with deceptive ease.

But what good is a song unless it is sung? I have a massive collection of vintage sheet music featuring photos of countless great and not-so-great performers who brought these works to life. They were the messengers without whom the songs would have laid silent. The lineage runs from Al Jolson to Louis Armstrong to Bing Crosby to Nat King Cole to Frank Sinatra to Bobby Darin to Harry Connick, Jr. Female vocalists more than held their own, from Sophie Tucker to Ruth Etting to Ethel Waters to Billie Holiday to Doris Day to Rosemary Clooney to Diana Krallan oral tradition in the literal sense of the word. Many of the great songs have become inseparably linked with specific performers, thus ensuring their survival. It is not possible to think of Over the Rainbow without thinking of Judy Garland or Puttin on the Ritz without Fred Astaire.

It all becomes overwhelming when you try to figure out where to start and what to listen to. Going to your local CD (or record) store is sure to promise a headache and more confusion. So, along comes Max Morath and this marvelous book to sort it all out and put it in clear-eyed perspective. He ably negotiates the waters by describing what a Popular Standard is and isnt, explaining its form and history, and suggesting who and what to listen to. My only regret is that you cant hear Max himself singing, playing, and illustrating all the songs. But thats why we have NPR. Happy listening!

Michael Feinstein is a Grammy-nominated performer, composer, and arranger, and one of the worlds foremost musical scholars and archivists. Among other accomplishments, Feinstein has appeared on Broadway, toured the globe, played for presidents and royalty, and recorded twenty albums. His musical illumination of legends such as George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington, and Harry Warren have truly made him Americas Ambassador of Song.