An insightful look at the urban sensibility that gives the Great
American Songbook its pizzazz. Nothing defines the songs of the
Great American Songbook more centrally than their urban
sensibility. During the first half of the twentieth century,
songwriters such as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields,
George and IraGershwin, and Thomas "Fats" Waller flourished in New
York City, the home of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Harlem. Through
their songs, these artists described America -- not its geography
or politics, but its heart -- to Americansand to the world at
large. In City Songs and American Life, 1900-1950, renowned author
and broadcaster Michael Lasser offers an evocative and probing
account of the popular songs -- including some written originally
for the stage or screen -- that America heard, sang, and danced to
during the turbulent first half of the twentieth century. Many
songs portrayed the glamor of Broadway or the energy and Jazz Age
culture of Harlem. But a city-bred spirit -- or even a specifically
New York City way of feeling and talking -- also infused other
widely known and loved songs, stretching from the early decades of
the century to the Twenties (the age of the flapper, bathtub gin,
and women's right to vote), the Great Depression, and, finally,
World War II. Lasser's deftly written book demonstrates how the
soul of city life -- as echoed in the nation's songs -- developed
and changed in tandemwith economic, social, and political currents
in America as a whole. Michael Lasser, a former teacher and theater
critic, is host of the syndicated public-radio show Fascinatin'
Rhythm (winner of the Peabody Award) and the author of two previous
books. Support for this publication was provided by the Howard
Hanson Institute for American Music at the Eastman School of Music
at the University of Rochester.
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