American Popular Song

The Great Innovators 1900-1950

Alec Wilder, James T. Maher, Gene Lees

$153.95

Hardback

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English

Oxford University Press Inc
21 September 1972

Light orchestral & big band music

When Alec Wilder's American Popular Song first appeared, it was almost universally hailed--from The New York Times to The New Yorker to Down Beat--as the definitive account of the classic era of American popular music.

It has since become the standard work of the great songwriters who dominated popular music in the United States for half a century.

Now Wilder's classic is available again, with a new introduction by Gene Lees.

Uniquely analytical yet engagingly informal, American Popular Song focuses on the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic qualities that distinguish American popular music and have made it an authentic art form. Wilder traces the roots of the American style to the ragtime music of the 1890s, shows how it was incorporated into mainstream popular music after 1900, and then surveys the careers of every major songwriter from World War I to 1950.

Wilder devotes desparate chapters to such greats as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen.

Illustrated with over seven hundred musical examples, Wilder's sensitive analyses of the most distinctive, creative, and original songs of this period reveal unexpected beauties in songs long forgotten and delightful subtleties in many familiar standards.

The result is a definitive treatment of a strangely unsung and uniquely American art.

By: Alec Wilder
Foreword by: Gene Lees
Edited by: James T. Maher
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 160mm, Width: 238mm, Spine: 31mm
Weight: 943g
ISBN: 9780195014457
ISBN 10: 0195014456
Pages: 576
Publication Date: 21 September 1972
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Alec Wilder was the composer of such famous songs as ""I'll Be Around,"" ""It's So Peaceful in the Country,"" and ""While We're Young,"" as well as theater and film scores and chamber music for every instrument in the orchestra."

Reviews for American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900-1950

'American Popular Song-The Great Innovators 1900-1950 by Alec Wilder, recently republished by Oxford University Press (Price #17.50 and worth every penny)' National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Spring/Summer 1993 A bible for all song-freaks, it includes a long chapter on Rodgers that backs up enthusiasm with analysis. * BBC Music Magazine, December 1999 *