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Jerome Kern (Yale Broadway Masters Series)

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"Jerome Kern," Stephen Banfield's contribution to the Yale Broadway Masters series, is a learned, beautifully written work that deserves careful study and will yield enormous pleasure to fans of the Broadway musical. On all levels--as biography, as musical study, and as theatre history--Banfield succeeds brilliantly.

Despite Kern's enduring popularity and his strong influence on such beloved composers as George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers, Banfield reminds readers how little we know today of the Broadway "sound" of Kern's shows because of the absence of cast recordings and the scarcity of published vocal scores. In his examination of Kern's development as a composer, Banfield closely examines three representative Kern stage musicals ("Sitting Pretty," "Show Boat," and "The Cat and the Fiddle"), paying close attention to characters, dialogue, song placement, and performance history, and the results are a revelation. Moreover, unlike many critics of Broadway musicals, Banfield is an extremely sympathetic scholar of song lyrics, and his careful analysis of Kern's collaborations with P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein, Johnny Mercer, Yip Harburg, and Ira Gershwin is a welcome and long-overdue addition to Kern studies.

Banfield's enthusiasm for his subject and the clarity of his writing are a joy to encounter. He has thought long and deeply about his subject and brings the kind of zeal that makes the reader want to hear all of Kern's music. There is not a trace of condescension in Banfield's approach, and the reader comes away with heightened respect for "tunesmiths" such as Kern who have yet to be fully understood or appreciated for their huge contribution to American musical culture, both serious and popular.

Jerome Kern
Stephen Banfield
Yale Broadway Masters
Yale University Press (New Haven & London, 2006);
xiii, 375pp; $22. ISBN O 300 11047 2.

When one thinks of Jerome Kern, most thoughts go towards Show Boat or individual songs such as "Ol' Man River," "The Way You Look Tonight," or "All the Things You Are" to name just a few. However, there is not much else known about the bulk of his compositional output. In his work on the composer, Stephen Banfield attempts to introduce the reader to not just the man Jerome Kern, but the musician who was Jerome Kern. The problem however with scholarly research on musical theatre topics is twofold: One, the materials involved with this genre have rarely been preserved or catalogued and two, most "scholars" do not view musical theatre as a genre worth studying. The latter is getting better as time and interest in the musical heritage of the genre increases. However, the former still presents a problem. Shows, their scores, scripts, staging guides, and librettos exist almost solely as working documents that are constantly in use. Essentially, they are living things that constantly evolve from the conceptualization of the show to its end and possible revivals. Invariably they are edited, rewritten, and even times cut apart completely. This is even truer of the more successful shows. Elizabeth Wells, in her review of Banfield's book, states the above concept quite clearly, "Popularity can unravel the historical evidence of a production as efficiently as indifference." This is where Stephen Banfield comes in.
Before Banfield began his work on Jerome Kern, a few other scholars delved into music theatre and the music of Jerome Kern. Gerald Bordman's work on Kern deals in excruciating detail with aspects of the personage of Kern. Banfield makes mention of this work in his work, stating that he is not trying to improve upon the work, but focus on different aspects of Kern. Where Banfield differs is in his treatment of Kern's music and musical style. Banfield, himself a
musician, works more with Kern the musician than Kern the person. The book is broken up into five large sections: `Introducing Kern,' `Kern and Musical Comedy,' `Kern the Romantic: Three Shows,' `Mostly Hammerstein,' and `Kern in Hollywood.' The first part of the work is devoted to Kern the person and offers an insightful chronology of Kern's life and career from Broadway to film musicals. The information in this section is a great introduction to the man and his life. However, Bordman's work provides a greater attention to detail. The rest of the work focuses on specific facets of Kern's musical style, with emphasis on certain works, places, times, and genres. This is what separates Banfield from Bordman, the attention given to the music. Much of Banfield's intent is to bring to light much of Kern's music that is not widely known. Banfield himself explains that nearly two-thirds of Kerns shows do not exist in any form or fashion, at least not in a useable piano-vocal score. This serious lack of physical musical resources has made in-depth study of Jerome Kern's music incredibly difficult if not bordering on incredibly complicated.
However, Banfield has made it his mission to locate and analyze the artifacts he could find. Many of these musical excerpts are included, usually as a full page, along with Banfield's own commentary to help the reader place or understand the document they are looking at. He also provides commentary on almost every aspect of Kern's shows and songs: characters, plots, and musical numbers. Each commentary is detailed, but allows those reading to come to Kern's music on their own terms. In treating Kern's music, especially his larger more successful works, Banfield makes references to musical influences like that of Edward Elgar, Arthur Sullivan, J.S. Bach, and Giacomo Puccini among others. While these are purely speculative on Banfield's part, they do give the reader a good indication that Kern's musical language was anything but plain or mundane.
In dealing with specific shows, Banfield devotes an entire chapter to three of them, one being Show Boat. Much of what he discusses is how Kern's music functions along with and within the drama of the show. He also discusses Show Boat in its place within the musical theatre genre as a seminal work. He touches upon the previous scholarly research and commentary around the musical. However, Banfield points out that none of the previous commentary regards Show Boat `s music, merely its socio-political content or its place and impact in Musical theatre. Banfield acknowledges these, specifically the concept of Show Boat as the first "integrated" musical on Broadway, but for him it is all about the music. For Banfield, Show Boat's musical back and forth between operetta and musical theatre is of specific interest. His analysis of the show is divided into four sub-headings each dissecting the musical qualities of the acts, scenes, characters, and songs of the musical. He pours over the "musical anagrams" of various musical motives that reference different songs in the musical; a pentatonic emphasis that generates the character Julie's theme which also references "Ol' Man River," and "Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun,'" Each scene, and almost each song receives this type of in depth treatment from Banfield. He concludes the entire section with an analysis of the five endings of Show Boat, all of which change the meaning of the show in some part. In fact, Banfield raises this issue as the very end of his discussion, the future meaning of Show Boat will depend on which ending or any future alterations made to it.
Where Gerald Bordman was explicit in his analysis of Kern the man, Stephen Banfield is the same with the music of Kern. For a series such as the Yale Broadway Masters, this work is an ideal member of the collection. Stephen Banfield has compiled excellent research from a host of primary sources. Each show is extensively annotated with its opening dates and houses referenced. His narrative coupled with the extensive use of musical examples invites the reader to experience Kern's music whether they are an expert or someone new to the genre. He brings the music's relationship with the drama of the shows to life.