George Gershwin was looking to move on from Tin Pan Alley to land a job that would advance his career. He heard that Irving Berlin was looking for a secretary of sorts to transcribe his songs, because Irving Berlin could not read music and could only play in one key. George Gershwin went to audition for Irving Berlin by playing a few Berlin songs in a variation of a medley with Ragtime influences. It is said that Berlin told Gershwin then and there, “Kid, don’t be my secretary. Go out and write your own songs.”
This story is my inspiration for my program notes because it speaks to the heart, the collection, the influences, and the changes, the creation, legacy, and history of The Great American Songbook.
“I’d like to write of the melting pot—of New York City, itself. This would allow for many kinds of music—Black and White, Eastern and Western—and would call for a style that should achieve out of this diversity, an artistic unity.” - George Gershwin
What is so specific and remarkable about The Great American Songbook (GASB) is that it is, all at once, what came before it and it is also what came after it. Our country was experiencing so much, so rapidly, and the songs were turning out just as quickly. There is so much I want to say because the web of inspiration that this era of music casts to its future is so intense. The story of The GASB tells our country’s journey set to music. The advent of radio, transportation, an unregulated economic market, increased leisure, the Industrial Revolution, talking pictures, fame, the workforce, the access and advertising of celebrities, The Red Summer of 1919, Prohibition, The Great Depression, World War I and World War II are all inside the loose perimeters of The GASB. Where to begin?!
Some say The GASB is the grouping of the most important songs between 1920 to 1950 or even 1960, including American standard songs, songs from Broadway musicals and Hollywood movies. I would disagree and argue the music of George M. Cohan is without a doubt the start of The GASB collection and the musical Oklahoma! in 1943 started a new era away from GASB and into The Golden Age of Musical Theatre—enter the book musical. The incomparable collaborations of Rodgers and Hammerstein united two separate creators from the GASB (Oscar Hammerstein with his groundbreaking musical Showboat in 1927 for which he also wrote the script—and Richard Rodgers of Rodgers and Hart having four musicals on Broadway in 1927.) In 1927 alone, there were 250 shows on Broadway, over 20 million people are going to theatre, and eight new Broadway theaters were constructed. Florenz Ziegfeld produced Showboat, and that musical changed Broadway and our nation.
No matter what specific dates one assigns to (or what song one deems worthy to) be inside the imaginary Songbook, the timeline of experiences for the USA within The GASB is staggering. This era brings the most expansion and the most change in entertainment that our country had or has ever experienced. In effort to keep this as short as is respectful, I will mention those who must be acknowledged.
Stephen Foster was known as “the father of American music” with his first published song in the early 1840s. Broadway is inspired by Vaudeville, and when Vaudeville came to America our country was booming with innovations. Sounds like great song inspiration to me! Vaudeville shows were America’s most popular form of entertainment in the beginning of the 1900s. If opera came from Florence with Rinnucini and Peri’s Dafne, and Vaudeville originated in France, what then is our American music legacy?
By the late 1890s, Vaudeville had large circuits in almost every sizable location with a national following. Our nation’s early opera houses were used for Vaudeville traveling shows. Vaudeville was cheap to see but the variety was enormous. Vaudeville included all of our immigrants in one way or another on- and off-stage and/or through the sheet music itself; this inclusion ignited Broadway, inspired our songs, and formed the America we know today. The famous line for the success of a Vaudeville show was “Will it play in Peoria?” If it would, you had a hit! In 1893, a twenty-six year old Florenz Ziegfeld came to Broadway from my hometown, Chicago, when looking for acts for the Chicago World’s Fair and found European BodyBuilder, Eugene Sandow. At that time, there were no theaters north of 42nd street. The center of the modern theater district was created on April 8, 1904 when the city fathers renamed Longacre Square in honor of the newspaper, The New York Times.
Times Square became the heart of New York when the subway station opened there six months later, bringing in visitors from all over. The newness, the energy, and the pace of this incredible boom in our history is put to music by the tunes of The GASB. Remember—no radio, no television, and a piano in every home. This period of GASB represents the amalgamation of everything that was happening in America, in New York City, and to our people at that time.
“Vaudeville was an essential training ground for Broadway musicals.” - Max Wilk, theater historian
Perhaps the most famous Vaudevillian to impact Broadway was composer, writer, and performer, George M. Cohan. He is thought by many to be the first great song and dance man of Broadway. He was born into his family’s act of the Four Cohans (watch the movie with James Cagney.) Cohan really started my idea of The GASB when he opened Little Johnny Jones on Broadway at The Liberty Theatre in 1904, just one block away from the Times Square Subway Station (which had opened just eleven days earlier.) Cohan gifted us more than forty shows over three decades. Claiming to have been born on the 4th of July, it has been said that Cohan’s passion was patriotism and his religion was show business. He is the only performer in American history who has a statue in Times Square. He is known today for his popular songs, but what he started on Broadway still echoes to this day.
The GASB lived on Tin Pan Alley, a specific location on West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue in New York City where music publishers set up shop. Songwriters would go there to try and sell their music, and customers would come in and listen to music played by a person in a tiny studio room with a piano to see if they wanted to buy sheet music to take home. So many got their start or found their way here. Early Broadway shows would buy songs from Tin Pan Alley and then form vague plots around these great, popular songs.
It’s been said that Florenz Ziegfeld and his follies were the equivalent of the melting pot, itself. The New Amsterdam Theatre was the showplace of the legendary producer Florenz Ziegfeld (1867-1932) who was the first Great Impresario of the American Musical. He took the idea of the French Folies Bergère and made it his own. Beauty, spectacle, comedy scenes, music from Tin Pan Alley, gorgeous scenery and costumes, you name it—Ziegfeld sold the best that money could buy. He was a visionary and a legend who started the careers of so many performers like Fanny Brice with a song Berlin gave her in 1909 called “Yiddle on Your Fiddle”. He also hired Bert Williams, one of the most prominent Vaudeville performers of his time. A famous anecdote about Bert Williams: he asked a bartender for a martini, and the bartender said that’ll be $1000. Without missing a beat, Bert Williams opened his wallet, smoothly pulled out five thousand-dollar bills and said, "I'll have five." Speaking of money... Florenz Ziegfeld went on to lose three million dollars in The Great Depression, but then he, as so many Broadway veterans did, went to Hollywood where they made Broadway themed movies.
Irving Berlin came to America in 1893 when he was five years old from Russia. He had a large family, was the son of an Orthodox Rabii, and he said he never felt poverty because they never knew anything else. He sang at Temple, loved to listen to the organ grinders playing opera and ragtime music all around New York City. He wrote the lyrics of his first song while working as a singing waiter in a saloon—“My Sweet Marie from Sunny Italy”. The music publisher misspelled his last name from Beilin to Berlin, and Irving kept it thinking that was a good name for an American songwriter. As previously stated, Tin Pan Alley (not Broadway) was the place to go to sell your songs and make connections. With a hit like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, Berlin and Ragtime music were invited into the Broadway scene. Between 1914 and 1962, Berlin wrote almost two dozen Broadway shows for his adopted country and gave us over 1,000 songs in all. Berlin was asked by the US Government to create a musical called This is the Army to boost morale in 1942 during WWII. Its cast consisted of real soldiers, and the proceeds from the performances went to the Army Emergency Relief fund. Toward the end of the second act, Irving Berlin came out on stage in his WWI uniform and sang “Oh, I Hate to Get Up in the Morning". The show was later adapted for the silver screen, and supporting roles included one played by a young Ronald Reagan. Once, Jerome Kern was asked to place Irving Berlin in the history of American song and Kern said, **“Irving Berlin has no place in American music. Irving Berlin IS American Music.”
Rodgers and Hart came into view as a duo when their song “Manhattan” became a hit in 1925. Previously, producers and publishers rejected their work. I could go on and on about these two fantastic artists; Lorenz Hart was so inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan, and the way he phrases, splits, or dances with the English language is phenomenal. His words are everything the moment calls for—be it funny, delightful, or intimate. I love their musical Babes in Arms, and I did not know they wrote the musical Pal Joey! Originally that show starred Gene Kelly on Broadway. See? Everyone started on Broadway.
Ira Gershwin was known as “the jeweler” for being able to fit words into his brother’s music. George definitely composed from what he could play on the piano, and sometimes it sounded and appeared as though he had four hands. The piano rolls of him playing songs seemed superhuman! Just like all of these composers, I could write for hours about how incredible he was! To have such a distinctively unique sound in a time when everyone was around and about Tin Pan Alley just speaks to the genius of each one of The GASB contributors. The George White Scandals were a big, important fixture of Broadway, and the Gershwins got to learn their craft with these shows. Dances like The Charleston came from The Scandals. I would have loved to have been alive during this time!
Cole Porter came from a wealthy family in Indiana. Interestingly enough, he was the special composer who was able to give a very needed balm to our country during The Great Depression. His songs offered an escape, a romantic elegance, and often a feisty playfulness. “Let’s Do It—Let’s Fall In Love” was his first big hit and was from the musical Paris. Porter was an enigma to most, but his contributions of both the words and music to so many beautiful creations are clear, classic, beloved, and signature.
Known as "The Bard of Broadway" was Walter Winchell, an American columnist from the New York Daily Mirror who coined the term: The Big Apple. Like the current jargon of 2025, this Broadway slang infiltrated society. The vernacular of our nation is always in our music. Imagine all the passwords necessary during Prohibition—this made for some of the wittiest, cleverest, most random, secretive, double entendre-filled, fabulous phrases and songs. We got never-before-heard rhythms and words that melded together just as the classes and cultures mixed; meanwhile breaking rules brought creative freedom—the likes of which no one had seen or heard before. New York led the nation.
George Boziwick, historian and former chief of the music division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, uncovered the hidden history about a song all of you know. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was Jack Norworth’s ode to his girlfriend, the progressive and outspoken Trixie Friganza. The original verse, which I will sing at my concert, speaks about a woman enjoying and participating in what was seen as a man’s space—a baseball stadium. She was a famous vaudeville actress, a feminist, and an unflinching supporter in the fight for the ballot. The musical Suffs (now on Broadway) along with Gypsy (starring Audra McDonald) speak to the Vaudeville circuit, as does the musical Ragtime. Music has and will speak to the moment. The history of Broadway, in particular, really mirrors the culture and the history of our young country. The beginning of Broadway is The Great American Songbook, and that’s why I chose this music—to start at my very beginning.
The only trouble I had was good trouble in creating this program, because there are about 100 more songs that I wanted to add to this 90-minute recital. Brendan Cooke was so wise to pair me with the inimitable Joe Holt. Because Joe is so uniquely and incredibly talented, I am fortunate to sing any song that I want. The importance of the feel of a song is the key. He and I had an immediate connection to understand and know this music on a soul- and spiritual level. No lengthy explanation is required. We found in each other a true partnership of collaborative space and inspiration. He follows me because I am following him, and we both are following our instinct to the sacred text and magical music that can never even try to be explained or learned. My rehearsal process for this recital is not far from the exchange between Berlin and Gershwin when looking for a musical secretary. I needed someone to understand the feel of the music I wanted to program. All of these songs I learned by ear before I even knew I was “learning” them. I learned these songs from my mom, by her singing them to me on our front porch; I learned the songs from my grandma, by her teaching them to me by rote in a voice lesson. I learned these songs from growing up watching TCMs with my family—so I never learned these songs in the traditional way that I have to learn my opera pieces now.
As artists, we should know where we came from. We should know the composers and the pieces on which our country and our industry leaned not too long ago. In fact, our nation stepped away from the European style of opera for a while during the wars. Every event made room for more music. Whether our country inspired the music or our music invited changes in our world, we can use all kinds of music today to help and inspire us in every way. Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern, Eubie Blake, Ethel Merman, Ethel Waters, Guy Lombardo, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Lillian Lorraine, Fats Waller, DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson—and dozens more will all be celebrated and talked about during my recital and after the show when Joe and I give a talk-back! Bring all your thoughts and questions to my concert on January 25th or to my inbox at emargevich@operade.org.
Thank you so much for reading and caring!
