 Ben Yagoda
Ben Yagoda, The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song
A panoramic take on American popular song in the 20th century: the craft and artistry of songwriting, as well as the business of song publishing and promotion. Yagoda’s primary focus is the so-called “Great American Songbook” (sometimes just “the Songbook”): the canon of often lyrically sophisticated, musically elegant “standards” — many still staples of cabaret and jazz (including instrumental jazz) repertoire — that we owe to that “Golden Age” of 1920s-1940s songwriters: Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hart, Harold Arlen, and Cole Porter.
Yagoda allows some “Songbook” adherents to vent about the decline of their beloved canon, but unlike some music historians, he acknowledges that there is now an enhanced, very different Songbook — owing to what even Songbook archivist Michael Feinstein calls a new “golden era” of songwriting: from Hank Williams to Bob Dylan and Lennon/McCartney; from Carole King and Curtis Mayfield to Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. Yagoda recognizes that though the Songbook indeed constitutes “a towering achievement in the history of this country,” “a wide range of remarkably talented songwriters of popular songs has emerged since then.” I’ve highlighted portions of more than half the pages of this book — It’s a very satisfying, and musically invigorating, journey.
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 Tony Bennett & Bill Evans
The Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album
As Tony Bennett has officially announced his retirement after a legendary 70-year career, it seems fitting to highlight the first of two albums that he considered his best: “the most prestigious thing he ever did,” according to the renowned music journalist Will Friedwald.
Rather than a conventional singer-with-accompanying-pianist, this record is more of a partnership between equals: Bennett and the renowned jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans. The result is nine superbly rendered songs: Leonard Bernstein’s haunting “Some Other Time” (with lyrics by Comden & Green; “easily Bernstein’s best-known song in the jazz world,” according to Friedwald); Evans’s own “Waltz for Debbie,” with a rare vocal by Bennett; “Days of Wine and Roses” — emotionally nuanced but intensely expressive songs, personalized with Bennett’s and Evans’s masterly phrasing: sometimes vibrant, sometimes understated. This may be the best jazz vocal album ever.
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How sad it was to hear of the death of Nanci Griffith, an exceptional singer-songwriter with Texas/country roots and an original “folkabilly” style. Her exquisite “Love at the Five and Dime” is really a classic ballad — “musical storytelling with a literary flavor,” as one obituary put it: a story-song like “Barbara Allen” or “Gypsy Davy.” But Nanci’s exquisite song tells a very contemporary story, complete with gritty details of a real-life love story. It’s a touching and beautiful song and was a huge hit for the country singer Kathy Mattea — but I prefer Nanci’s own version (on The Last of the True Believers).
