[Dixielandjazz] Where is the music going?

[Steve Barbone]

"One Never knows, do one?" - Fats Waller. How about this approach to "What
is 'American Songbook'?"

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


American Songbook Returns, Horizons Still Expanding

NY TIMES - By BEN SISARIO - January 17, 2007

What is American Songbook?

Eight years ago, Lincoln Center offered an answer with a new concert series,
American Songbook. Presenting evening-long tributes to composers of popular
standards of the 1940s and ¹50s like Harold Arlen, Jimmy Van Heusen and
Richard Rodgers, it took what might be called a particularly Lincoln Center
approach, defining a strict canon of immortals.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the pantheon. As the Songbook
series developed, it came to expand widely its conception of American
popular music, juxtaposing 30-something indie rockers, alt-country
singer-songwriters and even rappers with the grand old men of musical
theater and traditional pop.

As the spring portion of its ninth season opens tonight with the rapper and
actor Mos Def, who performs with a big band, American Songbook has become
one of the bright new hopes at Lincoln Center, drawing praise from musicians
and critics for something not often associated with the home of the New York
Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera: provocative programming that links
the classics with the sharpest in contemporary popular culture.

³It¹s exactly what should be happening and isn¹t happening enough,² John
Schreiber, a veteran concert promoter and theater producer, said of the
series. ³What Mos Def is doing is in its own way a contemporary version of
what Cole Porter did 80 years ago.²

Created as a pet project of Nathan Leventhal, who was then the president of
Lincoln Center, American Songbook had as its first artistic director
Jonathan Schwartz, the disc jockey and author known for rhapsodizing about
classic songs in his avuncular baritone. With Mr. Schwartz playing the
affable host, the first concert was held at Alice Tully Hall on Feb. 5,
1999, with an orchestra accompanying Barbara Cook, Audra McDonald, Diana
Krall and others in songs by Arlen.

It was a classy and auspicious start. But before long, the series faced
criticism for its conservative approach. ³From the beginning, the concerts
have played like deluxe, formulaic cabaret tributes massaging the nostalgia
of an old-guard theater audience in dully predictable ways,² Stephen Holden
of The New York Times wrote in a review of a Frank Loesser tribute in 2000.

Mr. Leventhal stepped down as president in 2000, and Mr. Schwartz left a
year later. Programming for American Songbook was taken over by a group that
included Jon Nakagawa, who had worked with Mr. Schwartz and also books
classical programs at Lincoln Center.

A pivotal moment came in the spring of 2002, when the band Magnetic Fields,
led by the wry and urbane Stephin Merritt, had a rare two-night concert of
its ³69 Love Songs² cycle. Mr. Nakagawa said that it was not easy to
persuade the performance-averse Mr. Merritt to do the show, but that his
involvement was crucial to the new direction of the series.

³We were trying to extrapolate what is the popular music of our time,² Mr.
Nakagawa said. ³We came to think of American song as being everything from
Stephen Foster to Stephin Merritt.²

More contemporary singer-songwriters were invited, and by the time the
series moved into the 450-seat Allen Room at Frederick P. Rose Hall, whose
wide windows offer a glittery view of Columbus Circle and Central Park, it
had struck a balance between old and new.

Among those in the 16-concert spring season are the jazz pianist and
composer Fred Hersch, tomorrow; the Broadway singer Judy Kuhn performing
songs by Laura Nyro on Friday; the 30-year-old indie-folk singer Josh
Ritter, on Jan. 31; Alan and Marilyn Bergman celebrating 50 years as a
songwriting team, on Feb. 2; Betty Buckley, on Feb. 10; and Neko Case, whose
music straddles indie rock and alt-country, on Feb. 23. Ms. McDonald kicked
off the ninth year of the series with two concerts in October.

With few strict guidelines to define national song beyond quality and
lyrical sophistication, the series is open to a variety of interpretations
of the idea of American music. The Tucson band Calexico, playing on Feb. 8,
draws from a wide palette of Southwestern influences, including surf guitar,
country and mariachi, positing geography itself as a criterion.

³That element of mixing it all up, whether it be jazz or folk or rock, is
quintessentially American,² said Joey Burns, Calexico¹s singer and
guitarist. 

Mr. Nakagawa, the producer of the series, and Charles Cermele, the associate
producer, say their only instruction to artists is to do something special.
Many have done just that, making use of Lincoln Center¹s extensive resources
to put on a show that would be too expensive or elaborate to do on an
ordinary tour date. Last year the songwriter Sufjan Stevens, in a gig heard
round the indie-rock world, appeared with a large ensemble that included an
eight-piece string section. Those arrangements became the basis for his
subsequent tour.

³This series has a chance to be something really alive and viable,² said
Rosanne Cash, who performed early versions of songs from her latest album,
³Black Cadillac,² at her Songbook show in 2005. ³If it turns into a thing
where people just go and sing Rodgers and Hart, then it will become the
Smithsonian. But if you keep it alive by being more inclusive and spanning a
wider period of time and space, then it could be great.²

The series also has an important function in Lincoln Center¹s broader aim of
drawing in younger audiences. Lincoln Center does not have demographic
information on Songbook ticket buyers, though anecdotal evidence from recent
concerts suggests that the series has had considerable success in this
regard.

But not everyone thinks Lincoln Center is the best steward for the most
contemporary forms of pop.

³The Lincoln Center moniker doesn¹t necessarily serve them well,² Mr.
Schreiber said, ³because Lincoln Center necessarily brands old. If I¹m a
young music fan, I want to go to Joe¹s Pub.²

Mr. Merritt praised the series for recognizing the virtues of serious
popular songwriting and for giving his band the chance to perform its
four-hour cycle when few other promoters were willing to take a similar
risk. But he warned that if the process he called ³the downtowning of
Lincoln Center² were too successful, it would leave concertgoers with a
novel conundrum.

³If Lincoln Center is Captain Cool,² he said, ³then where do you go for
stodgy?²