Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood

Chapter 3: Pathways of Americanization

54 chapter 3 Pathways of Americanization As a Jew, you will always have to be twice as good to get ahead in life. kirk douglas, The Ragman’s Son, p. 22 T he inroads made by Jewish song idioms into American popular music were mapped out by four different “A” routes: Adaptation, Adoption, Absorption, and Acculturation. Both Adaptation and Adoption function out in the open as conscious procedures on the part of authors. Absorption and Acculturation may or may not be conscious methods, but the Jewish materials they employ are hidden, resulting more in a synthesis than a mixture. Rhythmic disparities can dramatically transform the bonds between two melodies otherwise related by similar note patterns. As illustration, consider the pitch congruities between a simple motive of four notes built out of two intervals of the 4th and then observe the rhythmic divergences. The motto from the opening of the Sibelius Fifth Symphony, with its accent on the third note, is a clarion call (Ex. 3-1a). Bernstein, by shortening the third note and punching the last one, turns the same notes into a sassy shout in On the Town (Ex. 3-1b). The Andante theme from the Brahms “Double” Concerto (Ex. 3-1c) condenses the four-notes into ravishing lyricism, while the theme of The Eternal Light, a radio show on Jewish topics (1944-1981, Ex. 3-1d), expands it into a majestic pronouncement. Earlier than any of these, a synagogal version of the priestly “Three-fold Benediction” from midnineteenthcentury southwestern Germany denatures the motive of any rhythmic pulse (Ex. 31e ): pathways of americanization 55 Rhythmic alteration of larger phrases also changes the character of a melody. “Among My Souvenirs,” a woebegone 1927 ballad, becomes the lively “Dayeinu” (It Is Enough), a popular “folk tune” (probably derived from a drinking song) sung at family Passover seders. Recalling events in Jewish history, even some words from the seder tune faintly suggest the ballad’s lyrics: e.g., “Had [God] done nothing more than take us out of Egypt, that would have been enough.” Both have the same sequences of notes, one with snappy syncopes, the other with a steady quarter-note beat, and both are concerned with memories of the past. These two analogous tunes may be harmonized the same way, but such concurrences are irrelevant to my investigations since the basic nature of Jewish music is linear and monophonic, not vertical or polyphonic. Adaptation—Musical Transformations Song adaptors are ruled by the axiom “make it singable to be saleable and playable to be payable.” Of course, Yiddish melodies were not the only foreign-language songs to be so treated. To cite only a few representative examples from various languages :1 “Autumn Leaves” (1950): Johnny Mercer’s adaptation from Jacques Prévert’s French poem “Les Feuilles Mortes,” music by Joseph Kosma “The Girl from Ipanema” (1963): Norman Gimbel’s adaptation from the Portuguese (Brazil) “Garota de Ipanema” by Vinicius De Moraes, music by Antonio Carlos Jobim “Mack the Knife” (1952): Marc Blitzstein’s adaptation for The Threepenny Opera, from Bertolt Brecht’s German-lyric “Moritat,” music by Kurt Weill “Never on Sunday” (1960): Billy Towne’s adaptation of the Greek “Ta Pedia Tou Pirea” (The Children of Piraeus) by Manos Hadjidakis “Now Is the Hour” (1946): Maewa Kaihan’s and Dorothy Stewart’s adaptation of the Hawaiian “Haera Ra” (Maori Farewell Song), music by Dorothy Stewart and Clement Scott (a tune that begins the same as Salomon Sulzer’s setting of the Jewish monotheistic creed, Sh’ma Yisrael) “Without You” (1945): Ray Gilbert’s adaptation from the Spanish (Mexican) “Tres Palabras” (Three Words), words and music by Osvaldo Farrés It almost goes without saying that American songs have returned the favor, often having been adapted to foreign-language settings worldwide. Italy is a special case. Since opera is the Italian equivalent of baseball, the American national pastime, many Italians may well be frustrated opera singers. The preponderance of Italian male singers who popularized adaptations from Italian opera and folk song include such crooners and belters as: Frankie Avalon, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Alan Dale, Vic Damone, Bobby Darin, Sergio Franchi, Mario Lanza, Julius La Rosa, Frankie Laine, Dean Martin (but not Tony Martin, born Alvin Morris, who was Jewish), Al Martino, John Pizzarelli, Louis Prima, Johnny Ray, Tony Rosetti, Steve Rossi (partner of Marty Allen2 ), Frank Sinatra, and Jerry Vale. And the songs include: “Don’t You...