Stephen Banfield
Jerome Kern.
Yale University Press, 392 pages, $35
George Dorris notes, “To an astonishing degree, the study of the American musical, like the study of Greek drama and baroque opera, ought to come under the heading of archeology.” He points out that, of Sophocles’ one hundred plays, we have seven and change. Mutatis mutandis, Jerome Kern (1885–1945) might be the Sophocles of Broadway. He was ferociously productive—one two-year period saw him write eight complete (and produced) shows. In all, he wrote well over 1,000 songs; more than 800 of them once graced the pianos of a grateful nation, but now fewer than 50 are easily available in print. Of his more than forty stage shows, none was ever published with a complete script and score. If you share Bertie Wooster’s taste in song, you’ll deplore the loss of such shows as Oh, Boy! (1917), Oh, Lady! Lady! (1918), and Toot-toot! (1918). And if your ears have ever been tantalized by “(If Your Heart’s On Fire) Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” or “The Way You Look Tonight,” “I’m Old Fashioned” or “All The Things You Are,” you crave more.
In a very unprominent warehouse in Secaucus one day in 1982, a treasure trove of Warner Bros. scores and documents was unearthed. Gershwin, Herbert, Rodgers, Porter: eighty boxes in all. They also included over 175 unpublished Kern songs. That find has brought to life many new productions and recordings, and made this exemplary addition to
