NRR Project: Carousel of American Music (Sept. 24, 1940)

 

NRR Project: Carousel of American Music

Performed Sept. 24, 1940

Golden Gate International Exposition Federal Plaza/California Coliseum

San Francisco

4 hours, 42 min.

It’s the most amazing concert you’ve never heard.

First, I must point you to the explanatory essay about it by David A. Banks at the National Recording Registry. His account of the origin, gestation, and fulfillment of this project is comprehensive and precise!

The origin of this mega-concert was a boycott. The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) received royalties based on the public performance of its members’ material. In September 1940, the National Associations of Broadcasters (NAB) decided to forego using any music covered by ASCAP, beginning in January of 1941.

ASCAP wanted to flex its muscles, to demonstrate how vital they were to American culture. Since practically all the great composers, lyricists, and songwriters were members of ASCAP, they had a powerful bench to turn to to produce a concert – the biggest concert of its kind ever staged. Over the course of one day, music-makers from Roy Harris and Deems Taylor to George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin convened in San Francisco to perform their biggest hits.

ASCAP was also celebrating its 25^th anniversary. Gathering the “star power” of the premier songwriters of the first half of the 20^th century was quite a feat, and it went off like a charm.

The first part of the concert was performed in front of 25,000 at the Federal Plaza. It consisted of orchestral works by such composers as Harris, Taylor, Howard Hanson, and William Grant Still.

Later in the day, 15,000 people crammed into an auditorium built for 12,000; tens of thousands more listened over loudspeakers outside. ASCAP president Gene Buck served as the master of ceremonies, smoothly if somewhat obsequiously introducing all the acts.

And how lively they are! The chance for these composers to perform their own works in front of thousands energizes them, makes some of their renditions ebullient, even hammy. It’s a love fest with frequent applause breaks, singalongs, and encores.

The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra provides the accompaniment for most of the songs performed, a task they more than rise to. They play some selctions of Victor Herbert’s music. They play “Smiles.” The composers take the stage and perform classics such as “Love in Bloom,” “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” “Some of These Days,” “Over the Rainbow” (Judy Garland appears), “Melancholy Baby,” “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee,” “Three Little Words,” “My Blue Heaven,” “My Buddy,” “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Woolf?”, “Singin’ in the Rain,” “You Made Me Love You,” “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” “Goodbye My Lady Love” – basically all the hit songs of the past 50 years.

Jerome Kern appears, and knocks out “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “All the Things You Are.” We get to hear “Sweet Adeline,” “Lover, Come Back to Me,” some Sigmund Romberg, some Gershwin.

Johnny Mercer sings “Jeepers Creepers”! We get “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby.” Hoagy Carmichael comes out and does “Stardust” and “Little Old Lady.” There is “Deep Purple” and “Chinatown My Chinatown.” W.C. Handy, probably the only Black composer present, gets up and performs “St. Louis Blues,” playing the cornet! He gets an impressive and lengthy acclamation. The popular baritone John Charles Thomas sings a few more songs . . . then GEORGE M. COHAN shows up and sings a medley of his hits.

The crowd goes crazy, naturally – then IRVING BERLIN steps out and sings “God Bless America.” A wow finish.

The two-part concert was recorded but never broadcast. I was lucky to find it on something called Youtube Music, which you can link to here.

It is vastly instructive to hear these songs performed by those who created them. The rhythms, intonations, emphases, are all unique to them; hearing them as their creators intended is gives you a blueprint of what it was like to craft and sell songs in the early days of the Great American Songbook.

Most importantly, they all gathered together to receive the affection of the crowd, the energy of which is palpable in this exciting but rarely heard production.

In a way, the concert marks a turning point in American music. The days of the finely crafted songsmithing of Tin Pan Alley were over. Big band music was all the rage, but soon would come bebop, R & B, and rock and roll. This concert was a summation of the charms of a passing era.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: the Almanac Singers present Talking Union (1941).