Classic American Popular Song by Jenness David;Velsey Donald;Hollinger Karen;

Author:Jenness, David;Velsey, Donald;Hollinger, Karen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1619030
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

An experienced theater songwriter, Ervin Drake (b. 1919), who wrote both words and music, had his biggest success with It Was a Very Good Year (1961). The song has an overt nostalgia, but a surreptitious hard edge. Drake had an opportunity to develop this edge in his score for “What Makes Sammy Run” (1963). The Friendliest Thing (Two People Can Do), whose sexual referent lays it right on the line, has a smoky, late-night feel to it. Its ABAC. The melodic motives of all four sections are based on four-note strut-vamps that accompany a straight-forward endorsement: “If you are free / No strings attached / And you're like me, No wings attached.” Something to Live For is a more-thancompetent ballad, less musically elegant but verbally smarter than Ellingtons identically titled song. At five points, on first beats, bell-like octaves sound like chiming musical exclamation points. The lyrics are clever, sincere, and hip at the same time, with complex rhymes like “Life's no longer negative for, at last I've something to live for,” and “I'm your only raison d'etre, to love and honor, et-cet-'ra.” A Room Without Windows is a swinging song in classic theater style, with lots of forward syncopation. Textually, it's a romantic proposition, but pretty blunt, a more suggestive equivalent to Loesser's A Slow Boat to China. The end of the bridge is musically deft, setting “I'd tell them what we're after, is a one-way ticket to * a room without keyholes….” A song of Drakes we like is Now That I Have Everything, a ballad with a good concept: “I didn't like myself at all” … but finally, you came.

From a 1961 off-Broadway musical, “All Kinds of Giants,” there came an elegant, charming ballad, Paint Me a Rainbow, by Sam Pottle and Tom Whedon. It has an opening strain worthy of Jerome Kern, starting on the leading tone and using a glancing raised 4. The first period uses the classic, so-satisfying rhythmic pattern of a light dotted figure followed by a slow triplet. The out-of-scale tone comes in again, to fine effect, at the end of the song, differently harmonized. The words are fine, with a nice play on wishful/wistful in the bridge. It's a song worth knowing

There are two good ballads from “I Had a Ball” (1964), by the team of Jack Lawrence and Stan Freeman. Almost, about a love affair that never quite started, has an interesting release which plays off graceful quarter- and half-note units in the melody against a tangolike rhythm in the bass. The Other Half of Me is a song of wishing for one's love to come along. It has a graceful melody and a lyric with some sweet-sour lines: “Is there a chart for the heart or a graph?”

Laurence Rosenthal is known primarily for his television and film music and for musical theater ballet music. However, he wrote a complete score for a Broadway show, “Sherry” (1967), with lyrics by James Lipton. There are two compelling songs with long melodic lines and rhythmic momentum that build to dramatic endings.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.