Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago ". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg.
Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of nearly 50 musical comedies and operettas. Harbach collaborated as lyricist or librettist with many of the leading Broadway composers of the early 20th century, including Jerome Kern, Louis Hirsch, Herbert Stothart, Vincent Youmans, George Gershwin, and Sigmund Romberg. Harbach believed that music, lyrics, and story should be closely connected, and, as Oscar Hammerstein II's mentor, he encouraged Hammerstein to write musicals in this manner. Harbach is considered one of the first great Broadway lyricists, and he helped raise the status of the lyricist in an age more concerned with music, spectacle, and stars. Some of his more famous lyrics are "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Indian Love Call" and "Cuddle up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine".
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1924.
Vincent Millie Youmans was an American Broadway composer and producer.
Charles Rudolf Friml was a Czech-born composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer. His best-known works are Rose-Marie and The Vagabond King, each of which enjoyed success on Broadway and in London and were adapted for film.
The Desert Song is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Berber fighters, against French colonial rule in Morocco. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of Arabia aiding native guerrillas. Many tales romanticizing Saharan North Africa were in vogue, including Beau Geste and The Son of the Sheik.
Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story is set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon. When Jim falls under suspicion for murder, her brother Emile plans for Rose-Marie to marry Edward Hawley, a city man.
A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context.
Deep in My Heart is a 1954 American MGM biographical musical film about the life of operetta composer Sigmund Romberg, who wrote the music for The Student Prince, The Desert Song, and The New Moon, among others. Leonard Spigelgass adapted the film from Elliott Arnold's 1949 biography of the same name. Roger Edens produced, Stanley Donen directed and Eugene Loring choreographed. José Ferrer played Romberg, with support from soprano Helen Traubel as a fictional character and Merle Oberon as actress, playwright, librettist, producer, and director Dorothy Donnelly.
Golden Dawn is a 1930 Warner Bros. American pre-Code musical operetta film directed by Ray Enright that was photographed entirely in Technicolor. It stars Vivienne Segal, Walter Woolf King and Noah Beery. The film is based on the 1927 stage musical of the same name.
Viennese Nights is a 1930 American all-talking pre-Code musical operetta film directed by Alan Crosland and starring Alexander Gray, Vivienne Segal, Walter Pidgeon, Jean Hersholt, Bela Lugosi and Louise Fazenda. It was photographed entirely in Technicolor and released by Warner Brothers. Viennese Nights was the first original operetta written especially for the screen by Oscar Hammerstein II and Sigmund Romberg. It was filmed in March and April 1930, before anyone realized the extent of the economic hardships that would arrive with the Great Depression, which had begun in the autumn of the previous year. Although not a box office hit in the United States, the film had long box office runs in Britain and Australia. It is one of the earliest sound films to have a short pre-credit sequence.
The Desert Song is a 1929 American pre-Code operetta film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring John Boles, Carlotta King, Louise Fazenda, and Myrna Loy. It was photographed partly in two-color Technicolor, the first film released by Warner Bros. to include footage in color. The film included a 10-minute intermission during which music was played.
No, No, Nanette is a 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy film with Technicolor sequences that was directed by Clarence G. Badger and released by First National Pictures. It was adapted from the play of the same title by Otto A. Harbach and Frank Mandel. No, No, Nanette was a popular show on Broadway, running for 321 performances, and was produced and directed by Harry Frazee.
Herbert Pope Stothart was an American songwriter, arranger, conductor, and composer. He was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won Best Original Score for The Wizard of Oz. Stothart was widely acknowledged as a prominent member of the top tier of Hollywood composers during the 1930s and 1940s.
"Rose Marie" is a popular song from the musical or operetta of the same name. The music was written by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, the lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, In the original Broadway production in 1924, the song was performed by Dennis King and Arthur Deagon, as the characters Jim Kenyon and Sergeant Malone.
The Firefly is a 1937 American historical musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Jeanette MacDonald, Allan Jones and Warren William. The film is an adaptation of the operetta of the same name by composer Rudolf Friml and librettist Otto A. Harbach that premiered on Broadway in 1912. The film used nearly all of the music from the operetta but jettisoned the plot in favor of a new storyline set in Spain during the time of the Emperor Napoleon I. It added a new song, "The Donkey Serenade", which became extremely popular, as was one of the Friml songs, "Giannina Mia". The original release prints of the film were elaborately tinted with Sepia-Blue, Sepia-Orange and Sepia-Blue-Pink.
Oscar Peterson Plays the Jerome Kern Songbook is a 1960 album by Oscar Peterson, of compositions by Jerome Kern.
Wildflower or The Wildflower, is a musical in three acts with book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II and music by Herbert Stothart and Vincent Youmans. The plot concerns a pretty Italian farmgirl, Nina, who has a fiery temper. She stands to inherit a fortune provided that she can keep her temper under control for six months. If she fails, the money goes to her cousin Bianca, who tries to provoke her. She manages to do it, and gets the money, as well as her man, Guido. Several of the songs were published, among which "Bambalina" and the title song were the most popular. The musical proved to be Day's last Broadway show before moving to London.
Song of the Flame is an operetta with music by Herbert Stothart and George Gershwin, and a musical book and lyrics co-written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto A. Harbach. Organized into a prologue, two acts, and an epilogue, the operetta is set in Moscow, Russia and Paris, France in the Spring of 1917.
