Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical

Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical
Laurie Winer
Yale University Press (January 31, 2023), 505 pages
Kindle edition $16.99, Amazon hardcover $29.25

After reading two fairly heavy-duty books, Culture: The Story of Us and Ways of Being, I decided I needed something lighter. In some respects this book filled the bill, but in another regard Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical burdened me with more detail than I really wanted.

Author Laurie Winer states she wanted to write a book about the best American musicals, but in her research she realized that the book she needed to write was about Oscar Hammerstein II. (Hammerstein was II not because of this father. It was his grandfather who was Oscar Hammerstein I.)

Winer tells us that Oscar Sr. was an opera producer who overextended himself, and that his son Willie was a theater manager who was not very good at what he did. She states that to understand the grandson we need to understand the grandfather. She then delves into a long and detailed account of his career, which to me did little to enhance my understanding of the life of Hammerstein II.

The author describes how Hammerstein met with financial success early on writing shows that weren’t exactly musicals. She goes into great detail recounting his collaboration with Jerome Kern in the creation of Show Boat, which can reasonably be called the first American musical. Winer explores how the show was innovative in that it had a multi-racial cast in an era before integration was the norm.

Obviously Winer devotes considerable space to the collaboration between Hammerstein and Richard Rogers. And although this is supposed to be a biography of Hammerstein, she writes in detail about the collaboration between Rogers and Lorenz (Larry) Hart, and how Hart had trouble staying available for the work to be done, and and staying sober to get his songs written.

Winer writes about Hammerstein’s basic optimism and how that is reflected in so many of his lyrics. She also details how unpleasant a person Richard Rogers was to work with, and how difficult it became for others to work with him when Hammerstein became ill and was no longer there as a buffer. Rogers was, in fact, terribly tight with money and refused to share royalties even when a collaborator was fully entitled to such sharing. Winer suggests he twisted Hammerstein’s arm to go along with this approach.

The author delves into the sources of the various musicals. She writes extensively about the sources for South Pacific and The King and I. The source for South Pacific was the James A. Michener short story collection, Tales of the South Pacific. Hammerstein struggled with converting the disparate stories into a coherent narrative. He received assistance from Josh Logan, who originally brought the idea to the attention of Rogers and Hammerstein. Logan was never compensated for that work. The basis for The King and I came from a novel based on the autobiographical writing of Anna Leonowens, who was an English tutor to the children of the King of Siam in the late nineteenth century. Though some of the material was interesting, there was more detail than I needed.

I cannot fail to mention Hammerstein protégé Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim first became acquainted with Hammerstein as a youngster and admired him from the beginning. As Sondheim began writing his own pieces Hammerstein encouraged the work. How the lyricist with such a positive outlook became a mentor to a protégé with (often) such a dark vision is a question without a good answer.

If you enjoy the American musical, Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical is probably worth your time. Just be prepared for more background and history than you might be interested in.

Uncommon Measure

Uncommon Measure: A Journey Through Music, Performance, and the Science of Time
Natalie Hodges
Bellevue Literary Press (March 22, 2022), 214 pages
Kindle edition $15.38, Amazon paperback $16.19

Natalie Hodges opens her memoir by describing her performance anxiety in playing the violin and writes about her worries over the specific passages in a piece where she was afraid she was going to slip up. She writes about her different violin teachers and their differing approaches. Hodges describes the moment she realized she would never be successful as a concert violinist and put down her instrument. She then spends several pages writing about improvisation. Hodges admits to not being good at improvisation herself but goes into detail about a woman who was accomplished in that regard. She writes about the medical research into musical improvisation and discoveries about how the brain works in that manner.

After dwelling on the abstract concepts of improvisation, Hodges suddenly shifts gears and gives us a concrete picture of her childhood. Her mother gave her the violin to play as soon as she was big enough to hold it in her hands. She was one of four children, all of whom received an instrument. Hodges’s mother was Korean, but she married an upper class white man. At one point in her childhood her father summarily left her mother for a well-off white woman whom he believed was more appropriate for him in what he thought to be his station in life.

Hodges writes about her mother’s efforts to raise the four kids as a single parent and how she ensured that they continue their music education. The author admits that she woke up her mother, exhausted after finally having gotten the youngest sibling to sleep, to have her critique her playing.

In the midst of all of this Hodges digresses and talks about physics: both classical (the law of entropy) and quantum. The author covers a lot of territory in this short book.

Hodges concludes the book by describing how she picked up the violin again one last time to tackle one particularly challenging piece. The then put her violin away permanently. Hodges says playing the violin and then giving it up gave her something to write about and the opportunity for a different creative outlet. I’m sad that she gave up the violin, but I am happy that she took up the written word. I hope we see more of Hodges’s writing.

On Jazz

On Jazz: A Personal Journey
Alyn Shipton
Cambridge University Press (May 5, 2022), 312 pages
Kindle edition $15.49, Amazon hardcover $24.95

When I read about a book that captures my interest and the review or mention of the book appears before the publication date, I set a reminder in my Outlook calendar to download the Kindle sample on the actual date of publication. That was the case with On Jazz. Based on the review I was eager to read the book.

Certainly the author is well qualified to write about jazz. Alyn Shipton has played bass since his teens, he has written extensively about jazz, he was an editor at the publishing house Macmillan in the United Kingdom, responsible for accepting or rejecting books on jazz, and he has a long history at the BBC, hosting or producing jazz programs. As a longtime jazz aficionado and one who listens to jazz six evenings a week, I was looking forward to reading the book.

I was disappointed. I shouldn’t have been, I suppose. Shipton makes clear that the reader should take the subtitle, “A Personal Journey,” at face value and directs the reader to other books he has written for a more objective history of jazz.

Shipton writes about his experience with jazz in New Orleans and provides profiles of some of the greats in jazz history: Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, and others. He takes a unique approach to these profiles. He interviews the musicians who worked with these artists and provides transcripts of those interviews. The conversation was often hard to follow, however, as the interviewees were speaking in a conversational, vernacular manner which Shipton leaves as-is. He moves from one individual to another, and it’s often hard to keep track of who is speaking. The problem is exacerbated because the book uses the British convention of single quotes for quoted material with double quotes inside quoted material: the exact opposite of the American convention that I am used to.

Then there’s the fact that Shipton doesn’t define his terms. He writes about the swing era and about big bands, but he doesn’t define what kind of music either is associated with. He talks about Old Testament and New Testament music without telling the reader what those terms mean in the context of jazz. Late in the book he discusses the advent of fusion and he writes about bebop, without any clarification of what the terms mean. Added to that is the musical terminology that Shipton assumes the reader knows the meaning of.

From an archival standpoint I like the fact that the recollections of the rank-and-file musicians who worked with the big stars of jazz are preserved in Shipton’s book. But for a readable history of jazz and its evolution there are no doubt better choices.

On Highway 61

On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom
Dennis McNally
Counterpoint (October 14, 2014), 384 pages
Kindle edition $13.99, Amazon paperback $15.61
Purchased during an Early Bird Books sale for $3.99

This book is Dennis McNally’s attempt to document the fight for racial equality and social justice in America through the nation’s popular music. The idea of Highway 61 is that it roughly parallels the Mississippi river, near which so much of the social justice movement had its roots. However, he begins with Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond outside of Concord, Massachusetts and ends with Bob Dylan in (mostly) New York, though he makes a token attempt to return to the Highway 61 theme in the closing paragraphs of the book.

McNally writes about the early music of the slaves before the civil war, and the white musicians who adopted their style, put on blackface, and made a living doing minstrel shows. He discusses the earliest days of jazz and follows the art form into the twentieth century, with the likes of Thelonious Monk and Louis Armstrong. In fact, a disproportionate portion of the book is focused on jazz and blues.

The final section is focused on Bob Dylan, though others in the folk movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary are mentioned. McNally describes how the group Peter, Paul and Mary was put together by promoter Albert Grossman, which I knew. That Grossman was also Dylan’s personal manager I didn’t know. But that explains why the group sang so many Dylan songs. McNally says of Grossman, “In a left-wing folkie world that valued spirit over finance, Grossman was a barracuda surrounded by dinner.” ‘nuff said.

McNally writes briefly about the relationship between Joan Baez and Dylan, but not enough to really make clear its importance to the music of each. But there are other books to discuss that. Positively 4th Street comes to mind.

I bought this book in the Kindle edition when it showed up in an Early Bird Books email for $3.99. It was well worth the price. But $13.99 full price for the Kindle edition? Maybe. Maybe not.