Israel Baline may not have been born in the United States, but there is no other music on earth that sounds more American than his. Hed been born in Teemun, in Russia, but a pogrom mounted against the Jews forced the family to emigrate. They settled on the South side of New York, and the young composer was forced to earn a living on the streets, as accompanist to a blind musician, when his father died prematurely. Now renamed Irving Berlin, he embarked on his main career as a songwriter, and subsequently as his own publisher - he was to have one of the longest of all careers in the world of music. For the next hundred years and more, the name of Irving Berlin meant - as it still means - American music at its best.
For the classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Top Hat Irving Berlin came up with a zingy title tune and the caressing ballad Cheek To Cheek. For the former we offer the understated elegance and chic sophistication of the unique sound of the Savoy Hotel under the Direction of Carroll Gibbons, seated at the Piano. The latter is presented by the wonderful close harmony stylings of the first of the great girl groups - the Boswell Sisters - Helvetia (Vet), Martha and arranger Connie, the latter a victim of polio who worked from a wheelchair.
Blue Skies was originally an interpolation in a show by other hands called Betty, where it was sung by Belle Baker - as was the hit of the show. It was quickly taken up, and featured in the first part-talkie film The Jazz Singer, followed by five appearances over the next twenty or so years, culminating in one actually called Blue Skies which starred Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire - two artistes who have good reason to be grateful to this master songwriter. Here is a fine version of the song by Hobokens gift to the world of song, Francis Albert Sinatra. In the film of Blue Skies Bing Crosby recalled a number of fine Berlin masterpieces. One of them was the 1933 How Deep Is the Ocean? and he sings it here for you now.
A wonderful film with a Berlin score was the 1937 On The Avenue. Dick Powell, Madeleine Carroll and Alice Faye kept the audiences happy, and the Ritz Brothers made them laugh. The greatest jazz singer of all, the tragic Billie Holiday, reminds us of two of the films major hits: the comic He Aint Got Rhythm, and the ingratiating ballad Ive Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.
Fred Astaire was not merely the greatest dancer to grace the screen, he also inspired the great composers to create some of their finest work for him to introduce. He sings two numbers from two separate film successes. The elaborate finale to Top Hat was a new dance entitled The Piccolino originally warbled by Fred and Ginger, in an idealised Venetian setting created by the inspired art direction of Van Nest Polglase. In their nautical adventure Follow The Fleet, the temporary unhappy pair of Astaire and Rogers created one of their most memorable love duets in Lets Face The Music And Dance, one of Irving Berlins finest inspirations. Mandy, forever associated with Eddie Cantor, first surfaced in 1918 and was featured in Yip-Yip-Yaphank and then graced the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919. Berlin remembered it when compiling his Second World War revue This Is The Army. If that wasnt enough Eddie Cantor included it in his film smash Kid Millions and Bing Crosby in White Christmas. A popular song indeed was Mandy.
The Music Box Revue of 1925 included another superb Berlin standard - All Alone, and weve chosen a definitive performance from the most versatile and talented of the Boswell sisters, Connie. Another hit from the score of On The Avenue was Slumming On Park Avenue, introduced by vivacious blonde Alice Faye, and heard here in the swinging up-tempo Jimmie Lunceford arrangement. Apparently dapper leading man Dick Powell hated singing - but during the thirties he was asked to do little else - it was only after the war that he got