The American Songbook from Vaudeville to Hollywood: Volume 1, Tin Pan Alley Through the Swing Era, 1890-1938

The American Songbook from Vaudeville to Hollywood celebrates the cultural expressions contained in the unforgettable jazz-inflected songs of the twentieth century.Charting the development of songwriting in the context of American culture, David Michael Hertz treats words and music as of equal importance, exploring the mystery of how they work together in the phrase structures of songs.With a carefully drawn historical chronology, his narrative recounts a story of the evolution of American language as expressed in song lyrics, through which ordinary life becomes poetry.Hertz celebrates the evergreen quality of the songs, as they originate from Broadway shows, Hollywood films, or jazz clubs and then generate many new interpretations over the years.The rhythmic pulse of the songs-emphasizing the second and fourth beat of each measure-still characterizes popular music to this day. Many of the first songs that rose to popularity in the early twentieth century were written by immigrant New