Riverwalk Jazz Presents "Love, Hollywood Style: Romance & the Silver Screen"
Broadcast the week of 2/10/05
To stream this program right now, go to http://www.riverwalk.org
This week, Riverwalk Jazz presents a Valentine's Day concert of classic love songs and love scenes from the movies.
The great masters of American songwriting created some of their finest works for romantic movie musicals, many of them originally staged on Broadway. Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, and the very prolific Harry Warren were all major contributors to Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s.
Virtually all of these composers were influenced in their work to a greater or lesser degree by the jazz they heard all around them. And, there are lots of jazzy elements to be heard in the movie scores themselves, especially in the hot dance arrangements, some of which show the clear influence of the seminal recordings from the previous decade by jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and others. It's a fair statement that Fred Astaire's feet moved in a way unthinkable without jazz culture.
But, too, the influence flowed in the opposite direction, back in toward jazz itself. There is a long history of jazz musicians adopting these popular movie love songs as their own, transforming them with their hot swinging rhythm and “blue" tonality. Through the voice and trumpet playing of Louis Armstrong, for example, the pedestrian “You Are My Lucky Star" (composed by Nacio H. Brown and Arthur Freed for the movie musical “Broadway Melody of 1936"), morphs into something majestically syncopated and probably not envisioned by its creators.
Our musical guests this week are very much a part of this grand legacy of cross-pollination. Singers Nina Ferro and Rebecca Kilgore are both favorites with Riverwalk listeners. Here are some of the movie songs they “borrowed" this week for our Valentine's Day show, which includes soundtrack clips from the films that made them popular hits.
Irving Berlin's “Cheek to Cheek" is from the 1935 RKO picture “Top Hat" starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers.
“They Can't Take That Away From Me" was written by George and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 RKO picture, “Shall We Dance?," also with Fred and Ginger. That year, the song was nominated for an Academy Award.
Cole Porter's “Night and Day" was introduced by Fred Astaire and Claire Luce in the 1932 stage musical “The Gay Divorce." In the 1934 movie version, Fred's dance partner was Ginger Rogers. “Time After Time" was composed in 1947 by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, for the film “It Happened in Brooklyn." In the film, it is sung by Frank Sinatra and reprised by Kathryn Grayson.
To stream this program right now, go to http://www.riverwalk.org
This week, Riverwalk Jazz presents a Valentine's Day concert of classic love songs and love scenes from the movies.
The great masters of American songwriting created some of their finest works for romantic movie musicals, many of them originally staged on Broadway. Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, and the very prolific Harry Warren were all major contributors to Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s.
Virtually all of these composers were influenced in their work to a greater or lesser degree by the jazz they heard all around them. And, there are lots of jazzy elements to be heard in the movie scores themselves, especially in the hot dance arrangements, some of which show the clear influence of the seminal recordings from the previous decade by jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and others. It's a fair statement that Fred Astaire's feet moved in a way unthinkable without jazz culture.
But, too, the influence flowed in the opposite direction, back in toward jazz itself. There is a long history of jazz musicians adopting these popular movie love songs as their own, transforming them with their hot swinging rhythm and “blue" tonality. Through the voice and trumpet playing of Louis Armstrong, for example, the pedestrian “You Are My Lucky Star" (composed by Nacio H. Brown and Arthur Freed for the movie musical “Broadway Melody of 1936"), morphs into something majestically syncopated and probably not envisioned by its creators.
Our musical guests this week are very much a part of this grand legacy of cross-pollination. Singers Nina Ferro and Rebecca Kilgore are both favorites with Riverwalk listeners. Here are some of the movie songs they “borrowed" this week for our Valentine's Day show, which includes soundtrack clips from the films that made them popular hits.
Irving Berlin's “Cheek to Cheek" is from the 1935 RKO picture “Top Hat" starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers.
“They Can't Take That Away From Me" was written by George and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 RKO picture, “Shall We Dance?," also with Fred and Ginger. That year, the song was nominated for an Academy Award.
Cole Porter's “Night and Day" was introduced by Fred Astaire and Claire Luce in the 1932 stage musical “The Gay Divorce." In the 1934 movie version, Fred's dance partner was Ginger Rogers. “Time After Time" was composed in 1947 by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, for the film “It Happened in Brooklyn." In the film, it is sung by Frank Sinatra and reprised by Kathryn Grayson.
For more information contact All About Jazz.
