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Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern - pianist, composer (1885 - 1945) A colossus of the American Musical Theater, Jerome Kern was born in New York City on Jan. 27, 1885. His first music teacher was his pianist-mother. He later studied at the New York College of Music as well as in Europe. After working in the London theater, Kern returned to America, where the only work he could find was as a song plugger and pianist with a music publishing company. From 1905 to 1908 he was associated with a music company, rising to the vice presidency. He married Eva Leale in 1910, and they had a daughter. His first published score was an operetta, The Red Petticoat (1912). Between 1914 and 1929 Kern was represented on Broadway by at least one show a season. His prolific output included Rock a Bye Baby (1918), Sally (1920), and Sunny (1925). In 1926 he wrote the score for a Broadway adaptation of an Edna Ferber novel, and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the lyrics. The result was the musical classic Show Boat. It opened in 1927 and ran for 572 performances. It was later twice made into a Hollywood film. One of its songs, "Ol' Man River," is perhaps Kern's most famous. In 1941 Show Boat was transposed into symphonic form and performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Other Kern successes include Music in the Air (1932) and Roberta (1933) and, for the movies, Swing Time (1936), You Were Never Lovelier (1942), and Centennial Summer (1946). Among his most popular songs are "My Bill," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Who?," "They Didn't Believe Me," "Look for the Silver Lining," and "The Last Time I Saw Paris" (his only hit song not written for a specific show). In the realm of serious music, Kern composed Portrait for Orchestra (Mark Twain), which had its world premiere in 1942 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and Montage for Orchestral Suite for full orchestra and two pianos. In his 40-year career Kern wrote 104 stage and screen vehicles. At the time of his death on Nov. 11, 1945, he was in New York to cosponsor a new production of Show Boat. A film biography, Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), was one of many tributes paid to him.


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Anatomy of a Standard

"Pick Yourself Up" by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields

Read ""Pick Yourself Up" by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields" reviewed by Tish Oney


In 1936 Jerome Kern (1885-1945) and Dorothy Fields (1904-1974) collaborated to create several songs for the movie musical, Swing Time, starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. “Pick Yourself Up" served the film as the centerpiece around which a dance lesson given by Ginger to Fred yielded a remarkable “transformation" from a clumsy suitor to a technically superb dance master. Kern and Fields joined energies as a successful songwriting team for many projects yielding standards including “The Way You Look Tonight," ...

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Mike Wofford: Jerome Kern

Mike Wofford: Jerome Kern

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Sometimes you must give an artist time to reveal himself. That's certainly the case with pianist Mike Wofford, who has been recording jazz since 1962, starting with The Shorty Rogers Quintet With Guest Vocalist Jeri Southern. Over the 18 years that followed, Wofford accompanied Larry Bunker (Live at Shelly's Manne-Hole), Joe Pass (Joy Spring), Shelly Manne (Jazz Gunn, Perk Up, Daktari and many others), Howard Roberts (Antelope Freeway and others), Oliver Nelson (Skull Session, Stolen Moments), Bobby Shew (Debut), Sam ...

Recording

Al Haig Plays Jerome Kern

Al Haig Plays Jerome Kern

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Pianist Al Haig is most often thought of as a bebop boilermaker—laboring shoulder to shoulder with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the '40s with terrifying dexterity and rock-solid feel for the new music. But Haig also had a tender, romantic side in his later recordings, and his solo work is still hair-raising. One of his finest late-period albums is Al Haig Plays the Music of Jerome Kern. Recorded in 1978, the date featured Haig on solo piano or accompanied ...

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