BUTE Arts Society brought three very accomplished performers to the island to celebrate the life and works of Jerome Kern.
The mezzo soprano Sarah Shorter has previously visited Bute with The All Sorts and performs regularly with Scottish Opera. Tenor Christian Schneeberger has performed with Scottish Opera and Opera Bohemia; between performances he is also a singing teacher.
Sarah and Christian have also previously performed their celebration of Irving Berlin for Bute Arts Society. They were accompanied on piano this evening by the distinguished Derek Clark. Derek has recently retired from the post of Head of Music at Scottish Opera and is a very experienced conductor, accompanist and coach.
Jerome Kern (1885–1945) was one of America’s foremost songwriters. He wrote over seven hundred songs and contributed to over one hundred works for theatre and cinema. Although popular in his lifetime, only the musical Show Boat is regularly performed today. Many of his songs are still familiar and multiple tunes have been adopted as jazz standards.
The evening’s entertainment was a mixture of songs from Kern’s prolific career interleaved with information about his life and works. He was taught piano by his mother and first wrote songs for school productions. His first published work was At the Casino, but sadly no copy remains.
He worked his way up in Tin Pan Alley as he learned his craft, then moved on to writing songs for Broadway productions of London musicals. A lot of his songs are sentimental and romantic, which was very apt pre-Valentine’s Day fare.
Sarah and Christian warmed up with I’m Old Fashioned from the show You Were Never Lovelier; this, and other songs, epitomise quaint, traditional, apple-pie American values that were then the lifeblood of musicals.
Next, Sarah’s beautiful voice really came into its own with The Folks Who Live on the Hill, Derek’s effortlessly fluid piano accompaniment being the perfect foil. This was followed by an early work, How’d You Like to Spoon with Me. The endearing character performances of this number clearly delighted the audience. This was followed by All the Things You Are, sung by Christian and containing the line “You are the promised kiss of springtime” — something we all long for!
Kern’s innovative skills materialised with They Didn’t Believe Me, expressively sung by Christian. It was written in 1914 and used four beats to a bar (common time) rather than the then usual three beats to the bar (waltz time). This time signature was much more suited to the new modern dance styles and brought Kern great popularity.
The tune was adopted by American soldiers who rewrote the lyrics as We’ll Never Tell Them about deprivations of life at the front. Next, Derek revelled in a fabulous instrumental version of The Magic Melody. Another innovation from Kern, this was the first Broadway show tune to feature a jazz progression. Kern was keen to integrate songs into the story, a first for comedy musicals. Moving away from some of the more insipid lyrics that hardly enhanced his tunes, he collaborated with several lyricists, including P. G. Wodehouse.
After the interval, we were now in the 1920s, with Kern at his most prolific, many shows having incredibly long runs on Broadway.
A song from this period was Sunny from the eponymous musical; this was particularly important as it marked his first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II, who became a lifelong friend. Our performers then delighted us with a selection of pieces from the musical Show Boat. Based on a novel by Edna Ferber, it was a radical departure from contemporary shows in that it was centred around racial themes and was the first musical with a racially integrated cast.
Produced by Ziegfeld, it was his and Kern’s greatest success. The numbers we heard were Make Believe, performed as an entrancing piano solo; Why Do I Love You, sung by Christian and Sarah with delightfully paired vocals and an expressive and characterful performance; then finally Ol’ Man River as a deep and heartfelt piano solo.
Moving on from Show Boat, Sarah gave an emotive rendition of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. The lyric “When your heart’s on fire, smoke gets in your eyes” is paraphrased from a Russian proverb. This very popular song has been recorded and performed by many, including The Platters, Charlie Parker, Eartha Kitt, The Muppets and Bryan Ferry.
Next was possibly the audience’s favourite song, A Fine Romance from Swing Time, well known as the theme tune from the eponymous TV comedy starring Judi Dench and Michael Williams. It has combative yet comical lyrics sung by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the film. Sarah and Christian obviously enjoyed getting into character as this sparring couple. The evening concluded with Christian and Sarah singing the jolly, upbeat number Pick Yourself Up, also from Swing Time.
Members of the audience, although familiar with the name Kern, hadn’t realised just how many of his songs they knew. He was obviously a talented and innovative songwriter and it’s a shame that he isn’t as well known as others of the same era. The entertaining presentation had a great format and we hope that they will return with their tribute to George Gershwin’s music at a later date.
