RE: survey and Musical/Tin Pan Alley

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Alex,

Well my inbox has dropped from 1400 to 713, but am still only up to  
March 31.   Am determined to go through all the messages before responding
to recent ones...

It just so happens that my husband Josh Waletzky, a film director 
and composer, is just about to start preparing a film treatment on 
Harold Arlen for TV.   Will get him to find the book.   Thanks a lot.

Second, I never understood Irving Berlin.   Roth's statement makes perfect
sense.


Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky 



----------
From:  Alex J. Lubet[SMTP:lubet001 (at) maroon(dot)tc(dot)umn(dot)edu]
Sent:  Saturday, March 21, 1998 5:10 PM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant.
Subject:  Re: survey and Musical/Tin Pan Alley

Responding to the message of <01BD54D9(dot)6F28C060 (at) 
nysh1-41(dot)flash(dot)net>
from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
> 
> Sometimes in February, I stopped reading almost all of the Jewish-music 
> mail and am just now beginning to catch up with everything.   Just 
> found this post.  
> 
> First let me say Gideon Aronoff, that I very much appreciated your
> comments below.  I have been learning more and more about Lieber and 
> Stoller and have become fascinated by all this whole topic.  
> Furthermore, it's totally fascinating at how Jews in general are always 
> so adept at articulating and defining the local cultural values and 
> essences for both Jews and non-Jews whether that its film, or music or 
> art, business, or politics, etc.; or whether the country is America, 
> Germany, Poland, Italy, France, or Arab countries, etc.
> 
> Second, Alex Lubet, do you know or anyone else know what Phillip Roth's 
> hilarious explanation of White Christmas and Easter Parade?   I would 
> love to hear the explanation.
> 
> Did you hear what Cole Porter said when someone asked him how you write
> a Broadway melody?   He said "Well, first you start with a Yiddish song."
> 
> 
> Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
>


I'll see if I can't find out which novel it's in.  Roth claims that those songs 
are a means to secularize the major Christian holidays as a means of deflecting 
anti-Semitism.  It's meant, I think, as one of those jokes with an element of 
truth in it.  If you want to read a great book on Broadway lyricists, get 
Phillip Furia's "The Poets of Tin Pan Alley."  It has that Porter anecdote in 
it, but every other lyricist is, not surprisingly, Jewish. 


> 
> 
> ----------
> From:  Alex Lubet[SMTP:lubet001 (at) maroon(dot)tc(dot)umn(dot)edu]
> Sent:  Wednesday, February 11, 1998 12:00 PM
> To:  World music from a Jewish slant.
> Subject:  Re: survey and Musical/Tin Pan Alley
> 
> Responding to the message of <52eb93f6(dot)34e1d23f (at) aol(dot)com>
> from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
> > 
> > Alex Lubet wrote: 
> > 
> > "I like to think of the musical (also the classic Tin Pan Alley song) as a
> > Jewish genre, although I'm not exactly sure what's Jewish about it.
> > (lbviously, there are Yiddish theatre antecedents, but I specualte that
> > there's more)."
> > 
> > Alex and all:
> > 
> > I suspect that the answer will come more from sociology than musicology.  
> > Tin
> > Pan Alley, musical theater, as well as the Brill Building songwriters and
> > producers like Lieber and Stoller, Phil Specter, Carol King etc. all seem 
> > to
> > share two characteristics.  There is an obvious deep love of words that 
> > seems
> > fully appropriate for the "People of the Book."   Also these classic 
> > American
> > songs seem so deeply non-Jewish, eg. White Christmas, that they can best be
> > understood in the context of American assimilationism.  Like the film
> > industry, the music business is full of Jews articulating what it means to 
> > be
> > American, that is to say not Jewish.  All of this is important in
> > understanding the place of Jews in American culture, and in no way detracts
> > from the wonderful music that these Jews created.
> > 
> > Alternatively, there is a small trend for some popular performers to add
> > explicit Jewish content to their music.  Peter Himmelman, John Zorn, and 
> > Phish
> > are examples. 
> > 
> > Gideon Aronoff
> > 
> > 
> >  
> >Thanks.  Phillip Roth has a hilarious explanation of White Christmas and 
> Easter
> Parade, but I can't remember which novel it's in.  It's hilarity owes a great 
> 
> deal to its truth.   
> 
> 
> Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
> Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
> Adjunct Professor of American Studies
> University of Minnesota
> 100 Ferguson Hall
> Minneapolis, MN 55455
> 612 624-7840 (o)
> 612 699-1097 (h)
> 612 626-2200  ATTN:  Alex Lubet (FAX)
> 
> 
> .


Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
Adjunct Professor of American Studies
University of Minnesota
100 Ferguson Hall 
Minneapolis, MN 55455 
(612) 624-7840
(612) 626-2200 (FAX)