Am I the only one who finds Fred Hersch......

[seeline]

Back to R & H and "The Sound..." there's also No Way to Stop It, which is an attempt to persuade Von Trapp to accept the Anschluss (implied, not stated) and compromise with the Nazis.

It starts like this:

You dear attractive dewy-eyed idealist,

Today you have to learn to be a realist...

[fasstrack]

I also liked Hart better for his dark humor and liked Rodgers with Hart better than w/Hammerstein. But Hammerstein was a master craftsman, and at his best an emotional, moving lyricist. Oklahoma! is a masterpiece, and some individual lyrics like I Have Dreamed get me every time. I recommend reading Rodgers's autobiog, Musical Stages, for the sad story of the end of Rodgers and Hart due to Hart's dissipation, and picking up the pieces w/Hammerstein. I tell just one thing: Hart turned down Green Grow the Lilacs-whlch became Oklahoma!

[seeline]

Much as I love a lot of Hart's lyrics, Hammerstein at his best was Hart's equal - but a totally different kind of writer.

Edited September 18, 2012 by seeline

[fasstrack]

Johnny Hartman. You are correct, sir. The Voice that Is, unless ht was Just Dropped by to Say Hello. Both on Impulse! and, boys. I am proud of yiz both. Take a copy of Highlife as prize. Here's a pass for the library. Ask the lady with the bun do to help you (;

[Pete C]

I believe the Henderson version would have been earlier.

[fasstrack]

Yes, totally different, and so consistent he gets a bad rap as being boring-like many consistent, productive people. But he was stable and a worker, and that doesn't make sexy copy like the ever-popular self-destructive wastrel model. Hart was a genius, but Hammerstein had that '99% perspiration' that might as well be...

[seeline]

Yes, totally different, and so consistent he gets a bad rap as being boring-like many consistent, productive people. But he was stable and a worker, and that doesn't make sexy copy like the ever-popular self-destructive wastrel model. Hart was a genius, but Hammerstein had that '99% perspiration' that might as well be...

I think Hammerstein wrote some truly beautiful lyrics that are deceptively simple... and then there are the songs (like the ones I cited above) with extremely witty wordplay and some bite - the one about political and personal compromise is very mordant.

And even though many of the songs from the R-Hammerstein musicals have been performed in an overblown manner (Some Enchanted Evening, for example), those same songs can be sung in a quiet, nuanced way - and can be absolutely devastating as a result.

"Oklahoma!" has never been my cuppa, though... (But it has some marvelous songs.)

Edited September 18, 2012 by seeline

[fasstrack]

I also like Hammerstein's 'everyman' quality, where Hart was inside and Porter clever. They're all giants to me, the poet laureate being Berlin. Simple, direct poetry with not a word or note wasted.

[Pete C]

I think Hammerstein wrote some truly beautiful lyrics that are deceptively simple... and then there are the songs (like the ones I cited above) with extremely witty wordplay and some bite - the one about political and personal compromise is very mordant.

And, as far as I know, he wrote the only popular song lyric that's a pantoum.

http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/flowerdrumsong/iamgoingtolikeithere.htm

I know his grandson Andy.

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-12-16/oscar-andrew-hammerstein-hammersteins/transcript

I also like Hammerstein's 'everyman' quality, where Hart was inside and Porter clever. They're all giants to me, the poet laureate being Berlin. Simple, direct poetry with not a word or note wasted.

My four favorite GAS lyricists might be Hart, Harburg, Mercer & Ira Gershwin.

[seeline]

I'd add Johnny Mercer, Yip Harburg (et. al.) to the list.

The older I get, the more I like Berlin - Porter's wonderful, but there's that "sophisticate" veneer, as with Hart.

Edited to add: Didn't know about the pantoum - thanks so much, Pete!

Edited September 18, 2012 by seeline

[fasstrack]

Johnny Mercer, esp. w/Arlen, Harburg, Koehler, and Rodgers himself wrote very good lyrics. I looked up Loads of Love, thinking Hart wrote the lyrics. Rodgers!

[crisp]

Rodgers seems to have allowed his music to become a lot more staid under Hammerstein's influence than Kern did.

I wouldn't call Rodgers later music 'staid'. It might sound staid because it became one of the middle-of-the-road sounds by the 60s. But it's very rich harmonically - there are some heart stopping modulations. I was listening to Harry Allen's version of South Pacific yesterday and what I noticed was how the jazz versions actually iron out much of that richness in order to make it jazz-worthy. In its orginal form 'My girl back home' is a wonderful evocation of nostalgia for home, brilliantly evoked in the music; in the jazz version that tristese is lost.

I wonder how much of the seeming resistance to Rogers-Hammerstein songs in the jazz world has to do with their work being perceived as being overly sentimental, even corny. (Which it is sometimes, but not always.) It certainly doesn't fit with the "hip" ethos of the 50s and 60s...

I think that's much closer to the mark. Those musicals are extremely sentimental - I wouldn't go near 'The Sound of Music' for decades after an infatuation with it as a ten year old. But I watched it again a couple of years back and was enchanted.

The streetwise wise-crackers of Rodgers and Hart songs are always going to have more kudos than nuns and kids dressed in curtains. But I think that disguises a richness in Rodgers music that the knowing music fan often misses but the general public gets without even thinking about it.

I stand by the staid comment, although that doesn't mean I don't love R&OH -- I do. I pretty much agree with all the remarks above on these and other GAS songwriters.

The last R&OH show I saw was The Sound of Music at the London Palladium. What's incredible about these shows is the sheer overwhelming force of the talent involved: great song after great song with barely a pause between them. Hammerstein was also a great book writer: the songs are intricately woven into the story and carry it forward without a break. I remember the first of their shows I saw was the famous National Theatre production of Carousel; the Carousel Waltz ballet opening was one of the few times I wept, for want of a better word, at the beauty of a piece of theatre, and I'm not the weepy type. The show kept up that standard throughout.

I just think that some songs are so much a part of their origins -- in this case the stage -- that they resist translation to other genres. Doesn't mean they can't be transported, but it's a challenge few rise to.

I wonder how much of the seeming resistance to Rogers-Hammerstein songs in the jazz world has to do with their work being perceived as being overly sentimental, even corny. (Which it is sometimes, but not always.) It certainly doesn't fit with the "hip" ethos of the 50s and 60s...

That's surely true, although for some of those musicians the very "corniness" is a challenge. I'm thinking of Lee Morgan doing All At Once You Love Her or even Coltrane's My Favourite Things. Some musicians, Sonny Rollins for example, seem to specialise in unlikely show tunes; all those Jolson numbers...

[fasstrack]

Lord, deliver us from 'hipness' in the jazz musician that 2-5s everything to death, often messing over beautiful original harmony in these songs. Add to that guys so 'creative' they don't bother to learn the correct melodies, and let's not even discuss lyrics b/c almighty self-expression is the be-all. Then their imitators try to out-hip THEM. The great ASB players like Pops, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Rowles, etc. Were secure enough in their personalities to play a beautiful song as is. If they made changes it was from the heart and ears-never forced. For all the wild excursions Chris Anderson went on in reharmonizing and reimagining songs I know for a fact that if you asked him to play the original sheet music or score version he would flawlessly and respectfully. THAT IMO is where creative license comes from, or should. Do your thing, yes. But KNOW what you're doing it on.

[paul secor]

Rodgers seems to have allowed his music to become a lot more staid under Hammerstein's influence than Kern did.

I wouldn't call Rodgers later music 'staid'. It might sound staid because it became one of the middle-of-the-road sounds by the 60s. But it's very rich harmonically - there are some heart stopping modulations. I was listening to Harry Allen's version of South Pacific yesterday and what I noticed was how the jazz versions actually iron out much of that richness in order to make it jazz-worthy. In its orginal form 'My girl back home' is a wonderful evocation of nostalgia for home, brilliantly evoked in the music; in the jazz version that tristese is lost.

I wonder how much of the seeming resistance to Rogers-Hammerstein songs in the jazz world has to do with their work being perceived as being overly sentimental, even corny. (Which it is sometimes, but not always.) It certainly doesn't fit with the "hip" ethos of the 50s and 60s...

I think that's much closer to the mark. Those musicals are extremely sentimental - I wouldn't go near 'The Sound of Music' for decades after an infatuation with it as a ten year old. But I watched it again a couple of years back and was enchanted.

The streetwise wise-crackers of Rodgers and Hart songs are always going to have more kudos than nuns and kids dressed in curtains. But I think that disguises a richness in Rodgers music that the knowing music fan often misses but the general public gets without even thinking about it.

I stand by the staid comment, although that doesn't mean I don't love R&OH -- I do. I pretty much agree with all the remarks above on these and other GAS songwriters.

The last R&OH show I saw was The Sound of Music at the London Palladium. What's incredible about these shows is the sheer overwhelming force of the talent involved: great song after great song with barely a pause between them. Hammerstein was also a great book writer: the songs are intricately woven into the story and carry it forward without a break. I remember the first of their shows I saw was the famous National Theatre production of Carousel; the Carousel Waltz ballet opening was one of the few times I wept, for want of a better word, at the beauty of a piece of theatre, and I'm not the weepy type. The show kept up that standard throughout.

I just think that some songs are so much a part of their origins -- in this case the stage -- that they resist translation to other genres. Doesn't mean they can't be transported, but it's a challenge few rise to.

I wonder how much of the seeming resistance to Rogers-Hammerstein songs in the jazz world has to do with their work being perceived as being overly sentimental, even corny. (Which it is sometimes, but not always.) It certainly doesn't fit with the "hip" ethos of the 50s and 60s...

That's surely true, although for some of those musicians the very "corniness" is a challenge. I'm thinking of Lee Morgan doing All At Once You Love Her or even Coltrane's My Favourite Things. Some musicians, Sonny Rollins for example, seem to specialise in unlikely show tunes; all those Jolson numbers...

I agree with crisp - Roger and Hart: songs more important than shows. Rogers and Hammerstein: shows more important than (or at least as important as) songs.

And crisp's comment, "I just think that some songs are so much a part of their origins -- in this case the stage -- that they resist translation to other genres. Doesn't mean they can't be transported, but it's a challenge few rise to.", is a very perceptive one.

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes, totally different, and so consistent he gets a bad rap as being boring-like many consistent, productive people. But he was stable and a worker, and that doesn't make sexy copy like the ever-popular self-destructive wastrel model. Hart was a genius, but Hammerstein had that '99% perspiration' that might as well be...

'You've Got To Be Taught' out of South Pacific is pretty brave for it's time (1949). Did that get left in when (if) the musical was produced in the Deep South?

I just think that some songs are so much a part of their origins -- in this case the stage -- that they resist translation to other genres. Doesn't mean they can't be transported, but it's a challenge few rise to.

You might be right, crisp. But the only one I ever saw on stage was a regional production of 'The King and I'. I know them exclusively from the cinema (in most cases on TV) and from soundtrack recordings of those same films. They grabbed me.

[Pete C]

'You've Got To Be Taught' out of South Pacific is pretty brave for it's time (1949). Did that get left in when (if) the musical was produced in the Deep South?

In the '60s, in New York, at least, there was a public service commercial about tolerance that used that song.

[Mike Schwartz]

More grist for the mill...new 2 CD release on Palmetto-Records...quite enjoyable to me.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Ok Allen, you find Fred boring. But did you have to burn down Scullers to stop him from playing tonight?

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/09/19/doubletree-suites-hotel-in-allston-evacuated-after-fire-knocks-out-power/

[AllenLowe]

busted.....

[7/4]

Nice thread drift.

[Pete C]

Nice thread drift.

But not as daring as the continental drift.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

More grist for the mill...new 2 CD release on Palmetto-Records...quite enjoyable to me.

Which one is Hersch? The fat one who looks like a butcher from Barnsley?

I don't find Hersch boring. Haven't found him at all, as it happens

MG

[Pete C]

Which one is Hersch? The fat one who looks like a butcher from Barnsley?

No, the guy on the right in the striped shirt.

I hope The Butcher of Barnsley wasn't some kind of mass murderer.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Pete C

[relyles]

All this love hate of Hersch has me rethinking whether I will try to catch Hersch when he performs at Firehouse 12 in New Haven in October. In my attempt to prioritize my outings in the effort to reduce my unforgiven absences from home, I was going to skip Hersh. But now maybe I should try to go. I have only heard a few of his recordings. Nothing bored me, but nothing made me feel like I need to hear everything he has recorded. Maybe I owe it to myself to catch him live in the wonderfully intimate venue with great acoustics for some attentive listening. I better decide quick. Advance tickets for the first set are already sold out.

[jazztrain]

I would have said that you could come up to Boston to catch him at Sculler's tonight, but they had a fire earlier today and have cancelled the show.

All this love hate of Hersch has me rethinking whether I will try to catch Hersch when he performs at Firehouse 12 in New Haven in October. In my attempt to prioritize my outings in the effort to reduce my unforgiven absences from home, I was going to skip Hersh. But now maybe I should try to go. I have only heard a few of his recordings. Nothing bored me, but nothing made me feel like I need to hear everything he has recorded. Maybe I owe it to myself to catch him live in the wonderfully intimate venue with great acoustics for some attentive listening. I better decide quick. Advance tickets for the first set are already sold out.