Dominic McHugh
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199949274
- eISBN:
- 9780199394890
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199949274.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Popular
Alan Jay Lerner was the lyricist of some of the most beloved musicals of all time, including My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, and Camelot. Yet much of his work is less well known and his career has ...
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Alan Jay Lerner was the lyricist of some of the most beloved musicals of all time, including My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, and Camelot. Yet much of his work is less well known and his career has been overlooked in the scholarly literature on musicals. This book helps to bridge the gap by providing new insights into his working life through his professional correspondence with his colleagues and friends. The collection contains letters to Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Frederick Loewe, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Leonard Bernstein, among many others. It also provides an extensive commentary outlining his early years and putting his career into context.Less
Alan Jay Lerner was the lyricist of some of the most beloved musicals of all time, including My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, and Camelot. Yet much of his work is less well known and his career has been overlooked in the scholarly literature on musicals. This book helps to bridge the gap by providing new insights into his working life through his professional correspondence with his colleagues and friends. The collection contains letters to Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Frederick Loewe, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Leonard Bernstein, among many others. It also provides an extensive commentary outlining his early years and putting his career into context.
Stanley C. Pelkey and Anthony Bushard (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199936151
- eISBN:
- 9780190204662
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199936151.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
Familiar entertainment icons, stories, and signs from the 1950s and 1960s continue to resonate within contemporary American society and culture. Both the political Left and Right invoke the events ...
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Familiar entertainment icons, stories, and signs from the 1950s and 1960s continue to resonate within contemporary American society and culture. Both the political Left and Right invoke the events and memories of those decades, celebrating or condemning the competing social forces embodied in and unleashed during those years. In recent decades, the entertainment industry has capitalized on this trend with films and television shows that often look back on the 1950s and 1960s with a mixture of nostalgia and criticism.Less
Familiar entertainment icons, stories, and signs from the 1950s and 1960s continue to resonate within contemporary American society and culture. Both the political Left and Right invoke the events and memories of those decades, celebrating or condemning the competing social forces embodied in and unleashed during those years. In recent decades, the entertainment industry has capitalized on this trend with films and television shows that often look back on the 1950s and 1960s with a mixture of nostalgia and criticism.
Ethan Mordden
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199892839
- eISBN:
- 9780199367696
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892839.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
This book looks at the musical, from The Beggar's Opera to Wicked. Looking at Star Comic and Sweetheart Heroine; the war between musical comedy and operetta; the rise of the sexy story in the 1920s; ...
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This book looks at the musical, from The Beggar's Opera to Wicked. Looking at Star Comic and Sweetheart Heroine; the war between musical comedy and operetta; the rise of the sexy story in the 1920s; the wedding of ballet and hoofing in the 1930s; Oklahoma! and Carousel “musical plays” of the 1940s; Novelty Star in the 1950s, and other developments, this book looks at George Gershwin to Ethel Merman to Jerome Robbins to the director-choreographer and the offbeat contemporary show: Porgy and Bess, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Grand Hotel, Grey Gardens, and Rent. The book emphasizes not only the writing of musicals but the performing of them. Considering the development of dance, the book follows it from zany hoofing in the nineteenth century through the tap “combinations” of the 1920s and the injection of ballet and modern dance in the 1930s and 1940s. Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, and Gwen Verdon: theirs was a time when dance seemed as crucial as music by Richard Rodgers or lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The book examines also the changing role of the star, noting how such early-twentieth-century headliners as Fred Stone seldom varied their portrayals, whether as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz or Little Red Ridinghood's fatherly guardian in The Stepping Stones.Less
This book looks at the musical, from The Beggar's Opera to Wicked. Looking at Star Comic and Sweetheart Heroine; the war between musical comedy and operetta; the rise of the sexy story in the 1920s; the wedding of ballet and hoofing in the 1930s; Oklahoma! and Carousel “musical plays” of the 1940s; Novelty Star in the 1950s, and other developments, this book looks at George Gershwin to Ethel Merman to Jerome Robbins to the director-choreographer and the offbeat contemporary show: Porgy and Bess, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Grand Hotel, Grey Gardens, and Rent. The book emphasizes not only the writing of musicals but the performing of them. Considering the development of dance, the book follows it from zany hoofing in the nineteenth century through the tap “combinations” of the 1920s and the injection of ballet and modern dance in the 1930s and 1940s. Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, and Gwen Verdon: theirs was a time when dance seemed as crucial as music by Richard Rodgers or lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The book examines also the changing role of the star, noting how such early-twentieth-century headliners as Fred Stone seldom varied their portrayals, whether as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz or Little Red Ridinghood's fatherly guardian in The Stepping Stones.
Kathleen Riley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199738410
- eISBN:
- 9780199932955
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738410.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, Popular
Before ‘Fred and Ginger’, there was ‘Fred and Adele’, a show business partnership and a cultural sensation like no other. It is difficult in our ‘celebrity’-sated era to comprehend what a genuine ...
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Before ‘Fred and Ginger’, there was ‘Fred and Adele’, a show business partnership and a cultural sensation like no other. It is difficult in our ‘celebrity’-sated era to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon the Astaires were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s the siblings were seasoned transatlantic commuters, ambassadors of an art form they had helped to revolutionize, adored by audiences, feted by royalty, and courted socially by the elite in just about every field of endeavour. They seemed to define the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin’s music in motion; a fascinating pair who wove fascinating rhythms in song and dance. The story of Fred and Adele Astaire is an extraordinary one and is told here in depth and within its historical and theatrical context. It is not merely the first part of Fred’s long and illustrious career; it holds a significance and a fascination of its own, as well as having implications for Astaire’s subsequent career, which have not been fully appreciated. The story of the Astaires is also the story of an era. Born at the close of the nineteenth century, they, in effect, grew up together with the new century. Manifestly children of their time, they glamorously embodied the interwar style they had partly originated. At the same time, their appeal as performers was based largely on their apparent defiance of the darker aspects of the interwar psyche. They were an affirmation of life and hope in the midst of a prevalent crisis of faith and identity.Less
Before ‘Fred and Ginger’, there was ‘Fred and Adele’, a show business partnership and a cultural sensation like no other. It is difficult in our ‘celebrity’-sated era to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon the Astaires were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s the siblings were seasoned transatlantic commuters, ambassadors of an art form they had helped to revolutionize, adored by audiences, feted by royalty, and courted socially by the elite in just about every field of endeavour. They seemed to define the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin’s music in motion; a fascinating pair who wove fascinating rhythms in song and dance. The story of Fred and Adele Astaire is an extraordinary one and is told here in depth and within its historical and theatrical context. It is not merely the first part of Fred’s long and illustrious career; it holds a significance and a fascination of its own, as well as having implications for Astaire’s subsequent career, which have not been fully appreciated. The story of the Astaires is also the story of an era. Born at the close of the nineteenth century, they, in effect, grew up together with the new century. Manifestly children of their time, they glamorously embodied the interwar style they had partly originated. At the same time, their appeal as performers was based largely on their apparent defiance of the darker aspects of the interwar psyche. They were an affirmation of life and hope in the midst of a prevalent crisis of faith and identity.
Tracey E. W. Laird
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199812417
- eISBN:
- 9780199394319
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199812417.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
Austin City Limits comprises nearly four decades of changes in civic identity, media, and in potential ways people experience musical meaning. This book acts as a prism pulling together the singular ...
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Austin City Limits comprises nearly four decades of changes in civic identity, media, and in potential ways people experience musical meaning. This book acts as a prism pulling together the singular achievements of the PBS television show, and refracting them in ways that bear on popular media culture. Beginning with Willie Nelson’s 1975 pilot broadcast, Austin City Limits sustained national relevance over decades vis-à-vis the local scene and American popular music more broadly, both in constant flux. Austin City Limits spans dramatic shifts in the nature of television and expansion of digital media: once a circumscribed weekly broadcast, it is now a program available for streaming, a presence on Twitter and other social networks, and a “brand” or concept that conveys quality music. It simultaneously exists as a major music festival and a state-of-the-art venue. Thus Austin City Limits draws private and public enterprises—civic, cultural, business, and media organizations—into relationship with audiences in new twenty-first-century ways. The show’s history corresponds to the rise of Austin as “Live Music Capital of the World”; throughout that rise, the show fed the city’s claim to musical vitality just as the city grounded the show’s reputation for authenticity. Furthermore, Austin City Limits bears on the evolution of US public television, along with the broader dilution of genre as a concept. From regional showcase to its current post-genre space as musical tastemaker, Austin City Limits emerges from its deep Texas roots to flower in many directions.Less
Austin City Limits comprises nearly four decades of changes in civic identity, media, and in potential ways people experience musical meaning. This book acts as a prism pulling together the singular achievements of the PBS television show, and refracting them in ways that bear on popular media culture. Beginning with Willie Nelson’s 1975 pilot broadcast, Austin City Limits sustained national relevance over decades vis-à-vis the local scene and American popular music more broadly, both in constant flux. Austin City Limits spans dramatic shifts in the nature of television and expansion of digital media: once a circumscribed weekly broadcast, it is now a program available for streaming, a presence on Twitter and other social networks, and a “brand” or concept that conveys quality music. It simultaneously exists as a major music festival and a state-of-the-art venue. Thus Austin City Limits draws private and public enterprises—civic, cultural, business, and media organizations—into relationship with audiences in new twenty-first-century ways. The show’s history corresponds to the rise of Austin as “Live Music Capital of the World”; throughout that rise, the show fed the city’s claim to musical vitality just as the city grounded the show’s reputation for authenticity. Furthermore, Austin City Limits bears on the evolution of US public television, along with the broader dilution of genre as a concept. From regional showcase to its current post-genre space as musical tastemaker, Austin City Limits emerges from its deep Texas roots to flower in many directions.
Michael D. Dwyer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199356836
- eISBN:
- 9780199356867
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199356836.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This book examines the explosion of Fifties nostalgia in Hollywood film and popular music from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. In these years, Hollywood produced a slew of nostalgia films and ...
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This book examines the explosion of Fifties nostalgia in Hollywood film and popular music from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. In these years, Hollywood produced a slew of nostalgia films and circulated old movies on VHS; oldies radio allowed record companies to mine their own past, while genres like punk and new wave resurrected old styles; and the film and music industries collaborated to bring Fifties nostalgia to Hollywood soundtrack albums and music videos. In large part, these films, albums, and videos were not directed toward aging Baby Boomers but American teenagers—a “Re-Generation” trained in technological and cultural practices of rewind, record, replay, and rerun. Breaking from the dominant wisdom that casts this “pop nostalgia” as wholly defined by Ronald Reagan’s politics or postmodernist aesthetics, the book both complicates and transcends standard diagnoses of the political function of nostalgia in popular media, and sheds new light on a crucial and underexamined period in American politics and culture.Less
This book examines the explosion of Fifties nostalgia in Hollywood film and popular music from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. In these years, Hollywood produced a slew of nostalgia films and circulated old movies on VHS; oldies radio allowed record companies to mine their own past, while genres like punk and new wave resurrected old styles; and the film and music industries collaborated to bring Fifties nostalgia to Hollywood soundtrack albums and music videos. In large part, these films, albums, and videos were not directed toward aging Baby Boomers but American teenagers—a “Re-Generation” trained in technological and cultural practices of rewind, record, replay, and rerun. Breaking from the dominant wisdom that casts this “pop nostalgia” as wholly defined by Ronald Reagan’s politics or postmodernist aesthetics, the book both complicates and transcends standard diagnoses of the political function of nostalgia in popular media, and sheds new light on a crucial and underexamined period in American politics and culture.
Catherine Tackley
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195398304
- eISBN:
- 9780190268077
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195398304.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
On January 16, 1938 Benny Goodman brought his swing orchestra to America’s venerated home of European classical music, Carnegie Hall. The resulting concert—widely considered one of the most ...
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On January 16, 1938 Benny Goodman brought his swing orchestra to America’s venerated home of European classical music, Carnegie Hall. The resulting concert—widely considered one of the most significant events in American music history—helped to usher jazz and swing music into the American cultural mainstream. This reputation has been perpetuated by Columbia Records’ 1950 release of the concert on LP. This book provides the first in-depth, scholarly study of this seminal concert and recording. Combining rigorous documentary and archival research with close analysis of the recording, the author strips back the accumulated layers of interpretation and meaning to assess the performance in its original context, and explore what the material has come to represent in its recorded form. Taking a complete view of the concert, she examines the rich cultural setting in which it took place, and analyzes the compositions, arrangements and performances themselves, before discussing the immediate reception, and lasting legacy and impact of this storied event and album. As the definitive study of one of the most important recordings of the twentieth century, this book is a must-read for all serious jazz fans, musicians and scholars.Less
On January 16, 1938 Benny Goodman brought his swing orchestra to America’s venerated home of European classical music, Carnegie Hall. The resulting concert—widely considered one of the most significant events in American music history—helped to usher jazz and swing music into the American cultural mainstream. This reputation has been perpetuated by Columbia Records’ 1950 release of the concert on LP. This book provides the first in-depth, scholarly study of this seminal concert and recording. Combining rigorous documentary and archival research with close analysis of the recording, the author strips back the accumulated layers of interpretation and meaning to assess the performance in its original context, and explore what the material has come to represent in its recorded form. Taking a complete view of the concert, she examines the rich cultural setting in which it took place, and analyzes the compositions, arrangements and performances themselves, before discussing the immediate reception, and lasting legacy and impact of this storied event and album. As the definitive study of one of the most important recordings of the twentieth century, this book is a must-read for all serious jazz fans, musicians and scholars.
Tony Whyton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199733231
- eISBN:
- 9780190268121
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199733231.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Recorded by his quartet in a single session in 1964, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme is widely considered one of the greatest jazz albums of all time. A significant record of Coltrane’s transition ...
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Recorded by his quartet in a single session in 1964, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme is widely considered one of the greatest jazz albums of all time. A significant record of Coltrane’s transition from the bebop and hard bop of his earlier recordings to the free jazz style perfected throughout the rest of his career, the album is also an embodiment of the deep spirituality that characterized the final years of his life. The album itself comprises a four-part suite; the titles of the four parts-“Acknowledgment,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm,”-along with the poem Coltrane composed for inclusion in the liner notes, which he “recites” instrumentally in “Psalm” reflect the religious aspect of the album, a quality that contributes to its mystique and symbolic importance within the canon of seminal jazz recordings. This book explores both the musical aspects of A Love Supreme, and the album’s seminal importance in jazz history. Using criticism of late Coltrane recordings as a starting point, the author suggests ways of listening to these recordings that can be considered outside the conventional ideologies of mainstream jazz practice. The book concludes with a study of the broad musical and cultural impact of the album, examining the relationship between the recording and music, literature, poetry and film.Less
Recorded by his quartet in a single session in 1964, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme is widely considered one of the greatest jazz albums of all time. A significant record of Coltrane’s transition from the bebop and hard bop of his earlier recordings to the free jazz style perfected throughout the rest of his career, the album is also an embodiment of the deep spirituality that characterized the final years of his life. The album itself comprises a four-part suite; the titles of the four parts-“Acknowledgment,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm,”-along with the poem Coltrane composed for inclusion in the liner notes, which he “recites” instrumentally in “Psalm” reflect the religious aspect of the album, a quality that contributes to its mystique and symbolic importance within the canon of seminal jazz recordings. This book explores both the musical aspects of A Love Supreme, and the album’s seminal importance in jazz history. Using criticism of late Coltrane recordings as a starting point, the author suggests ways of listening to these recordings that can be considered outside the conventional ideologies of mainstream jazz practice. The book concludes with a study of the broad musical and cultural impact of the album, examining the relationship between the recording and music, literature, poetry and film.
Jayson Beaster-Jones
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199993468
- eISBN:
- 9780190200701
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199993468.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, Popular
This book surveys the music of seventy years of Hindi films and provides a long-term investigation of film songs and their musical and cinematic conventions. Focusing on the music of Hindi language ...
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This book surveys the music of seventy years of Hindi films and provides a long-term investigation of film songs and their musical and cinematic conventions. Focusing on the music of Hindi language films (i.e. Bollywood) in their historical, social, and commercial contexts, the author pays special attention to the meanings that songs generate inside and outside film narratives and within Indian society at large. Songs are a vital component of film promotion on broadcast media, are distributed via soundtracks by music companies, and have long been the hegemonic popular music genre in India (even for people who rarely watch the films for which the songs were written). The book illustrates how film songs are produced through the collaboration of film directors, music directors (composers), lyricists, musicians, and singers in order to enhance the film narrative, but also to have commercial success outside of the film. Through close musical and multimedia analysis of more than twenty landmark songs, along with biographical and musical descriptions of the people who have crafted and performed these songs, this book illustrates how the creators of Hindi film songs have always mediated a variety of musical styles, instruments, and performance practices from Indian and international sources in order to produce a distinctive Indian music genre. This genre has always had cosmopolitan orientations, yet has consistently retained discrete sound and production practices over its long history.Less
This book surveys the music of seventy years of Hindi films and provides a long-term investigation of film songs and their musical and cinematic conventions. Focusing on the music of Hindi language films (i.e. Bollywood) in their historical, social, and commercial contexts, the author pays special attention to the meanings that songs generate inside and outside film narratives and within Indian society at large. Songs are a vital component of film promotion on broadcast media, are distributed via soundtracks by music companies, and have long been the hegemonic popular music genre in India (even for people who rarely watch the films for which the songs were written). The book illustrates how film songs are produced through the collaboration of film directors, music directors (composers), lyricists, musicians, and singers in order to enhance the film narrative, but also to have commercial success outside of the film. Through close musical and multimedia analysis of more than twenty landmark songs, along with biographical and musical descriptions of the people who have crafted and performed these songs, this book illustrates how the creators of Hindi film songs have always mediated a variety of musical styles, instruments, and performance practices from Indian and international sources in order to produce a distinctive Indian music genre. This genre has always had cosmopolitan orientations, yet has consistently retained discrete sound and production practices over its long history.
Stacy Wolf
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195378238
- eISBN:
- 9780199897018
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195378238.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
This book demonstrates how the history of the Broadway musical is inseparable from the history of U.S. women, and argues that this mainstream, commercial form has been dominated by women onstage as ...
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This book demonstrates how the history of the Broadway musical is inseparable from the history of U.S. women, and argues that this mainstream, commercial form has been dominated by women onstage as performers and offstage as spectators and fans. Beginning in the 1950s and organized by decade, the book examines women in musicals and in the context of U.S. culture, considering both the representation of women—that is, images of women—and the labor of the female performer—that is, her centrality to the musical as performance. In addition to surveying key ideas around gender and sexuality in each decade of U.S. history, every chapter focuses on a specific convention: the female duet in the 1950s; the single woman as a moving body in the 1960s; the ensemble number in the 1970s; sceneography in the 1980s; the opening number and 11 o’clock number in the 1990s. The final chapters on the blockbuster Broadway musical Wicked returns to the 1950s model and analyzes how the musical Wicked reinvigorates the Rodgers and Hammerstein formula in a feminist and queer musical. This book argues that gender, as a key element of the musical, played a crucial role in the Broadway musical’s formal and structural changes from the 1950s on.Less
This book demonstrates how the history of the Broadway musical is inseparable from the history of U.S. women, and argues that this mainstream, commercial form has been dominated by women onstage as performers and offstage as spectators and fans. Beginning in the 1950s and organized by decade, the book examines women in musicals and in the context of U.S. culture, considering both the representation of women—that is, images of women—and the labor of the female performer—that is, her centrality to the musical as performance. In addition to surveying key ideas around gender and sexuality in each decade of U.S. history, every chapter focuses on a specific convention: the female duet in the 1950s; the single woman as a moving body in the 1960s; the ensemble number in the 1970s; sceneography in the 1980s; the opening number and 11 o’clock number in the 1990s. The final chapters on the blockbuster Broadway musical Wicked returns to the 1950s model and analyzes how the musical Wicked reinvigorates the Rodgers and Hammerstein formula in a feminist and queer musical. This book argues that gender, as a key element of the musical, played a crucial role in the Broadway musical’s formal and structural changes from the 1950s on.
“A Gentleman and an Officer”
‘A Nation of Beggars’?
The A Priori in Philosophy
A. J. Appasamy and his Reading of Rāmānuja
A. J. Tomlinson
Aaron Hill
The Abbey Theatre, 1899-1999
The Abbots and Priors of Late Medieval and Reformation England
Abelard and Heloise
