Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz

[Teasing the Korean]

Schwartz and Dietz don't get enough love.

I was just listening to Johnny Mathis singing "Bye Myself," and I thought to myself, "I wonder who wrote that?"

Turns out it is by none other than our friends Arthur and Howard.

 

[JSngry]

How much love is enough love, and in what unit is it measured?

I hope it's not a metric thing! 

[sgcim]

Also wrote Alone Together. Jonathan Schwartz, the well known rock DJ at WNEW in the 60s, and then jazz /Sinatra DJ at WNYC for decades is Arthur Schwartz' son.

He played a lot of private tapes from his father, and was like a Phil Schaap of The Great American Songbook. In the great #Me Too Purge at WNYC, he got the boot, along with Lenny Lopate and John Hockenberry. I think you can still here him on Sirius Radio on "The Jonathan Show".

[Teasing the Korean]

41 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I hope it's not a metric thing! 

TTK is a proponent of the metric system, which was thriving during the Carter administration, and which died a quick death under Reagan.  (Hope this isn't violating the politics rules!)

[JSngry]

Many things did. 

[Teasing the Korean]

11 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Also wrote Alone Together.

Also:

• Dancing in the Dark
• You and the Night and the Music
• Something to Remember You By
• I Guess I'll Have to Change my Plan

And:

The sublime "I See Your Face Before Me."

 

[Larry Kart]

14 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Also:

• Dancing in the Dark
• You and the Night and the Music
• Something to Remember You By
• I Guess I'll Have to Change my Plan

And:

The sublime "I See Your Face Before Me."

 

I became friendly by chance with Dietz's widow, the celebrated costume designer Lucinda Ballard.

 

Lucinda Ballard in 1940

Lucinda Ballard (April 3, 1906 – August 19, 1993) was an American costume designer who worked primarily in Broadway theatre.

Born Lucinda Davis Goldsborough in New Orleans, Louisiana, Ballard studied at the Art Students League in New York City. Her first professional credits was as the scenic and costume designer for a 1937 production of As You Like It. In 1945, she won the Donaldson Award for the costumes she designed for I Remember Mama.^[1] Two years later she was the first person to win the Tony Award for Best Costume Design, an acknowledgement of her contributions to Another Part of the Forest, Street Scene, and The Chocolate Soldier, among others. Her second Tony was for the 1961 musical The Gay Life. Additional theatre credits include Annie Get Your Gun, Allegro, A Streetcar Named Desire, Flahooley, The Fourposter, Carnival in Flanders, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, and The Sound of Music.

Ballard designed only two films, Portrait of Jennie and the 1951 screen adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Ballard and her first husband, William Fitz Randolph Ballard, divorced in 1938 after eight years of marriage. They had two children, Robert F. R. Ballard (b. 1933) and Lucinda Jenifer Ballard Ramberg (1934-1989). In 1951, she married lyricist Howard Dietz, and the couple resided in Sands Point, New York, until his death in 1983.

Ballard died of cancer at the age of 87 in New York City.

The " by chance"part was interesting. On some now forgotten journalistic mission I was at a performance by Michael Feinstein at New York City's Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence. Ballard had been invited, along with a lot of other people, and arrived with IIRC her 20-something niece in tow. They sat down next me on a couch, and we introduced ourselves and chatted a bit. Then as the afternoon went on I couldn't help but notice that Ballard's niece was behaving like an absolute jerk; she finally picked up her stuff and waltzed away like she had much better things to do. I continued to talk to Ballard in attempt to paper over the niece's patent rudeness, and when the performance was over Ballard invited me up to her apartment; she lived right across the street. She liked the fact that I was a great admirer of her late husband's work as a lyricist and knew a good deal about him (I'd read his entertaining autobiography). Among other things she played several very amusing party records Dietz made -- he was a very witty man-- and after a while she and I were as thick as thieves. We corresponded off and on for several years.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

I became friendly by chance with Dietz's widow, the celebrated costume designer Lucinda Ballard.

Great story!

[JSngry]

Party records?

[Larry Kart]

Records that were made at parties when Dietz was doing schtick to amuse the assembled guests and that was amusing/clever enough to be played later on -- not "party records" of the Rusty Warren sort. Dietz in high gear was like the entire writing/performing staff of the latter-day Sid Caesar show all wrapped up in one. Also IIRC when he was the head of publicity for MGM back in the 1920s, Dietz made up the mock-Latin slogan that appears on the logo of all MGM films, "Ars Gratia Artis" (Art for the Sake of Art). I think he also had something to do with the other familiar aspect of the MGM logo -- both the choice of the roaring lion and the choice of which roaring lion to use.

 

 

 

 

[JSngry]

Kinda disappointed about the party records.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Kinda disappointed about the party records.

Well, at least the Lionel Newman party photograph survives.

[JSngry]

https://www.discogs.com/label/1175188-Party-Record

[sgcim]

22 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Also:

• Dancing in the Dark
• You and the Night and the Music
• Something to Remember You By
• I Guess I'll Have to Change my Plan

And:

The sublime "I See Your Face Before Me."

 

Add to that "Wee Small Hours" and "Then I'll Be Tired of You" and you've got quite a fantastic collection of standards. His son Jonathan used to sing them at clubs at one time. He's married to Zohra Lampert, the actress, who also does some singing, I think.

Edited July 7, 2022 by sgcim

[sgcim]

His son made one record on Muse! Check out the lineup:

JONATHAN SCHWARTZ SINGS ARTHUR SCHWARTZ:  Alone Together

Jonathan Schwartz:  vocals
Harold Mabern:  pianos
Buser Williams:  bass
Ben Riley:  drums
Jack Wilkins:  guitar
Marvin Stamm:  trumpet, flugelhorn
The String Reunion

[Teasing the Korean]

19 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Add to that "Wee Small Hours" and "Then I'll Be Tired of You" and you've got quite a fantastic collection of standards. His son Jonathan used to sing them at clubs at one time. He's married to Zohra Lampert, the actress, who also does some singing, I think.

"Then I'll Be Tired of You" was written by Schwartz and Yip Harburg.  But "Wee Small Hours?"

 

[Larry Kart]

18 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Add to that "Wee Small Hours" and "Then I'll Be Tired of You" and you've got quite a fantastic collection of standards. His son Jonathan used to sing them at clubs at one time. He's married to Zohra Lampert, the actress, who also does some singing, I think.

Maybe my favorite Dietz lyric: "By Myself" 

The party's over, the game is ended
The dreams I dreamed went up in smoke
They didn't pan out as I had intended
I should know how to take a joke

I'll go my way by myself, this is the end of romance
I'll go my way by myself, love is only a dance
I'll try to apply myself and teach my heart to sing
I'll go my way by myself like a bird on the wing

I'll face the unknown, I'll build a world of my own
No one knows better than I, myself, I'm by myself alone

I'll go my way by myself, here's how the comedy ends
I'll have to deny myself love and laughter and friends

Grey clouds in sky above have put a blot on my fun
I'll try to fly high above for a place in the sun
I'll face the unknown, I'll build a world of my own
No one knows better than I, myself, I'm by myself alone

5 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Well, at least the Lionel Newman party photograph survives.

What is that?

[Teasing the Korean]

59 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

What is that?

Here you go.  Nephew Randy is in the foreground, and John Williams looks on appreciatively.

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[sgcim]

6 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

"Then I'll Be Tired of You" was written by Schwartz and Yip Harburg.  But "Wee Small Hours?"

 

I did a search and came up with Mann and Hilliard, but Wikipedia said it was Schwartz. Does this mean that Wikipedia is wrong?!  That means that everything I know is wrong!!!!!!

Johnny Smith is the only instrumentalist I've ever heard play "By Myself". He plays it pretty up there. There must be others...