Singing from the Heart

MOS just completed its 22nd Season with a program entitled Ballads, Blues, and Broadway (Songs from the Great American Songbook).  The concert was performed before a large and enthusiastic crowd whose enthusiasm was matched by the energy and exuberance of the singers.  It was an exhilarating evening of music making and left me considering what it is that helps create such a night.

In addition to the qualities of both the audience and singers mentioned above, I think the repertoire performed had a huge impact on everyone in attendance.   We regularly find profundity and meaning in the great works we sing, e.g., Brahms’s  Requiem, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and many more.  Still, there is something very immediate and personal that connects with us when we sing some of our finest popular music.  Included in our performance were such pieces as It Had to Be You, Unforgettable, My Romance, Embraceable You, Mood Indigo, and I’ll Be Seeing You.  When you combine those songs with an excellent chorus and a fantastic jazz trio (Tyrone Jackson on piano, Neal Starkey on bass, Marlon Patton on drums) you have the ingredients for something truly special.

One more thing I noticed about this program was that my singers seemed to be (even more than usual) singing from the heart.  This is, of course, difficult to define, but it’s one of those things that is easy to recognize when experienced.  I’m glad we could end our season with a program of great American popular music that was able to touch hearts and bring both smiles and tears to our faces.

The Great American Songbook

The Great American Songbook is a very loosely defined creation that attempts to represent some of the best songs of the 20^th Century.  Drawn primarily from the Broadway theatre, Hollywood musicals, and popular song, selections included in the Songbook are usually from the 1920s to the early 1960s, and are an important part of the repertoire of jazz musicians, who describe such songs simply as “jazz standards.”

Some of the composers and lyricists most commonly associated with the Great American Songbook are Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, and Duke Ellington.   Performers of the past and the present who have recognized the wealth of material found in the Songbook include such notables as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, and Michael Feinstein.  

Most of the songs in the Great American Songbook are written in “verse-chorus” form.  The verse is a musical introduction that is typically of a free musical structure, with speech-like rhythms and a non-metrical delivery.  This leads to the chorus, which is recognized as the more central part of the song, sometimes even being the only part of the song that is performed.  The subject matter of most of the songs is love, in all its varieties.

Several of my all time favorites are “My Romance” by Rodgers and Hart, “Embraceable You” by George and Ira Gershwin, and “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Kahal and Fain.  What are your favorites?