MUS 219 The Great American Songbook
The early 20th century was a prolific period of output for American popular music. Songs written during the interwar years have come to be collectively known as The Great American Songbook, and this vast repertory intersects with other major musical genres including jazz, opera, cabaret, art song, gospel, rock, country, and musical theater. The course will focus on the Songbook music by “The Big Six”: Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In exploring and analyzing the music and lyrics of these songs, we will examine American culture and life during the period in which they were written as well as the songs’ crossroads with racial and gender issues ever-present in American society today -- a century later.