Last gasp of the Great American Songbook

[Larry Kart]

About soft-rock ballads and the like, I think I've told this story before, but once in the course of an interview in I think the late '70s I suggested to Tony Bennett that he take a look at Boz Scaggs' "We're All Alone" as a possible piece of material. The next time we met, Bennett said that while he found the melody of "We're All Alone" attractive, "the song doesn't go anywhere," meaning that it's one mood, stated and restated. Thus, in terms of both music and lyrics, there's hardly any ABA shape to Scaggs' song and/or much contrast between A and B material. Quite apart from the merits of Bennett's judgment here, it's a useful reminder of how essential the storytelling chorus-bridge ABA (usually of course AABA) shape of most GAS material is -- take that away from the style and it doesn't work, like a watch without a mainspring.

[fasstrack]

I was wondering when the GAS died. Probably in the fifties.

"Cry me a river"? Well, a great, great song, with brilliant words - what could be better than

"told me love was too plebian

told me you were through with me and

NOW (which should be sung/played triumphantly) you say you want me..."

But does the fact that it was introduced (I think) in the film "The girl can't help it" disqualify it, in view of the class bias of the GAS?

Or perhaps there were later songs that are genuinely part of the GAS...

Some songs from "My fair lady"? "I could have danced all night"? Would you count that? Not sure myself.

Or "West side story"? Nothing really, I think. And certainly nothing from "The sound of music".

But there's Henry Mancini - "Days of wine and roses" from about 1962/3. Damn fine song. Gritty. Maybe too gritty. Despite the "and you", that's still a song about alcoholism (to me).

Or a couple that Andre & Dory wrote - "That's how it went, all right" and "Goodbye Charlie" - but both about murder. So... Hm. And, who knows those songs ayway?

Same goes for a couple of Tommy Wolf songs - "Ballad of the sad young men" and "Spring can really hang you up the most" (also I don't know when they were introduced).

No Stephen Sondheim, or that geezer who wrote JC Superstar (are Brits allowed in the GAS? Is "The very thought of you" in there?)

What do you think?

MG.

Good question, and right down Broadway for me. I play the songbook every day of my life and in public, and am considered---and certainly consider myself a jazz musician. I'm a songwriter myself, and take it as seriously as I do playing, and that's very serious. So my work is in the GAS and I want it to survive and prosper b/c I believe in and am invested in it.

I don't know what happened with Tommy Wolf. I think I heard he died young and sad---and it was a major loss. He had another good one: I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco---recorded by Carmen MacCrea on Atlantic. Also, let's credit Fran Landesman for a miraculous lyric on Spring Can....It's one of the heavyweights.

As for Sondheim I think his genius will outlive any snarling in critical corners (he's not 'melodic'----BS). His handle on his craft is at a very high level. Jazz players, since you brought up the connection, have tackled Pretty Women (Sweeney Todd), Ladies Who Lunch was sung well by Cassandra Wilson. He is known for Send in The Clowns, but he has produced much work of similar quality. I like Anyone Can Whistle for a lyrical, simple melody. Listen to Weekend in the Country sometime and be blown away by his vocal quartet writing. Amazing. The point is he's alive and well and still capable of turning them out---contributing to the Songbook again. (Also, let's give props to Jonathan Tunick for orchestrating many of his shows.

I think there will always be a need for good songs and so there will always be someone to supply them. I also don't think jazzers' acceptance of same ought to be the final word. Songwriters work resonate because they speak to people---they somehow take society's temperature and express it in poetry. Jazz players are usually interested in the changes. The really thinking musician picks songs that fit their voice and way of playing.

Edited October 16, 2009 by fasstrack

[crisp]

Excellent post, fasstrack.

Allen Lowe: Could you elaborate on Van Heusen if you have time?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

MG

[BruceH]

two - or is it three - words:

Jimmy Van Heusen.

Greatest songwriter of the 20th century.

And a helluva shirtmaker as well.

He should've collaborated with Paul Anka.

Didn't Van Heusen also dabble in ties and even hats (or at least put his name on them)?

[medjuck]

I'm pretty sure that Cry Me a River was a hit a couple of years before The Girl Can't Help It.

Don't know - the LP "Julie is her name" (Liberty 3006 mono) came out in Jan 1956. Liberty only started up in 1955, which is when the LP was recorded, I expect. (I don't have a Liberty singles discography.)

Were there earlier versions, I wonder?

And who's Arthur Hamilton (the writer)?

MG

My memory (not always accurate) is that it was on the hit parade at least a few months before I saw the film (which I think came out in late '56. I saw it on New year's eve). According to AMG the Lp was 1955. (Not that they're always accurate.) They also say that the composer was an old schoolmate of London's.

The song The Girl Can't Help It was written by Bobby Troupe the composer of Route '66. He and London were married, though I don't know if they were at the time. Maybe that's how they met. Previously she was married to Jack Webb!

[AllenLowe]

interesting comment by John Dailey, who was a great bassist in NY in the 1970s (he was Hazel Scott's bassist) and who had spent a lot of time on the West Coast and said this to me in the late 1970s:

"Julie London wasn't really making it, singing-wise, until Cry Me a River. In the studio the day she recorded it she was practically crying as she sang - she'd just broken up with Jack Webb and that whole song was her way of telling him off. That's why it was a hit - people could feel it."

Edited October 17, 2009 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

interesting comment by John Dailey, who was a great bassist in NY in the 1970s (he was Hazel Scott's bassist) and who had spent a lot of time on the West Coast and said this to me in the late 1970s:

"Julie London wasn't really making it, singing-wise, until Cry Me a River. In the studio the day she recorded it she was practically crying as she sang - she'd just broken up with Jack Webb and that whole song was her way of telling him off. That's why it was a hit - people could feel it."

Nice story, Allen. I always wondered why she didn't give the NOW! the right kind of triumphal feel. If she was feeling like that, I can understand it.

MG

[Peter Friedman]

Not sure the year it was written, but LOVE DANCE by Ivan Lins seems to have made it as a "standard" even though Lins is from Brazil.

[fasstrack]

I was looking through a book of older Tom Waits lyrics today. Good poetry. If a lyric reads good it usually is good.

I think the Songbook is in good shape. I'm glad you brought this up.

BTW: regarding Julie London, that was Barney Kessel and Ray Leatherwood accomping her on Julie is Her Name. There's another record by her I really like. Don't know the name but she sings Soon its Gonna Rain (The Fantasticks). I immediately started playing it after hearing that, besides the fact that I love all the music from that show. I'd love to know who the guitar player is on that. Anyone know?

[Royal Oak]

two - or is it three - words:

Jimmy Van Heusen.

Greatest songwriter of the 20th century.

I agree FWIW (which isn't much!)

[fasstrack]

I attended a panel yesterday at Lincoln Center Library. It had Jonathan Tunick, Hal Prince, John Kander, Elliot Lawrence (from whose band sprung a teenaged Gerry Mulligan) and other heavyweights who write for Broadway shows. The theme was the orchestrators and composers. It was great and is archived on NYPLs website (or will be).

The thing that stood out was that, to a man, they all complained bitterly about having to deal with pared down or non-existing orchestras (b/c of penny pinching producers). The money factor really tamps down what even these giants can add to shows. What a drag. So not only jazz is poor and has to play it safe to get sales of recordings, etc.

[AllenLowe]

Royal Oak - I'm grateful to ANYONE here who agrees with me on anything.

I LOVE van heusen

[Royal Oak]

AllenLowe said:

Royal Oak - I'm grateful to ANYONE here who agrees with me on anything.

I LOVE van heusen

Yes, yes, yes. The ballads are amazing.

Reminds me of a musician joke my dad told me once. A singer asks the band for "Darn That Dream". The bandleader agrees, but says "Okay, but how about we play it a half-tone sharp and miss out the last bar of the bridge". The singer looks aghast and says "What are you doing to me, I can't do that". The bandleader replies (here it comes) "Why not, you did it last night". Boom boom.

[danasgoodstuff]

Conceptualizing/defing GAS in a way that ensures that it's over is cutting off your nose to spite your face (or something ruder, if you prefer). i couldn't care less about debating the 'last gasp' of that...but I do care about great american songs and songwriters and I don't know that that's over yet...could be but I don't track current songwriting well enuff to say. But any book of great american songs that doesn't include any number of things by Willie and Smokey and bacharach and others who usually don't get a listen by the GAS-bags, that's completely useless to me. Being played by jazz guys is not the measure of great songwriting, in my book.

And one last thing, this GAS/where did all the good songs go thing is that I feel very strongly that it is/was a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesey

Edited May 8, 2014 by danasgoodstuff

[JSngry]

I used to buy all kinds of records by all kinds of singers and all kinds of arrangers just for the kick of finding a good/great song that nobody ever played. There's more of those than you might imagine, but it's kinda like, ok, had its chance, didn't get it, and now things have moved on. Hello Fixed (in all kinds of way) Qualities & Quantities.

But still, a (relatively) unknown good/great song is still a kick to run into, and de-fixes the fixes (hello Jazz Legend Mythologistories!) for as long as the spell is cast/lifted (hello unwinnable conundrum of Alternate True Realities).. Two examples:

Hello, Bobby Troop (aka Dr. Joe Early)

And hello Sid Feller, doggone ya'! What I said a while ago about him always being excellent but never great, I still stand by, but will stipulate an exception along the way, and hello "here one is":

And as long as we're saying hello, let's give a friendly waverly gesture to post-bop chromaticism impacting post-bop popular songisms, I'd imagine having Julie London in your personal arsenal pre- and post- gig would get you comfortable with shapely contours that got from one place to another in a non-immediate fashion, although that's just Bobby Troop, granted. But ok, Dr. Early, we all know that look, right, you're telling no secrets by letting THAT cat outta the bag!?

[JSngry]

[duaneiac]

This is a lovely, well-crafted song from the 1970's that never got the attention it deserved

http://youtu.be/E9N6n52LoSA

While it may be an automatic instinct to deride Barry Manilow, he certainly did a good job in putting a fine melody to these Johnny Mercer lyrics.

http://youtu.be/NIwp6xZdoRc