Irving Berlin: American Troubadour.

BERRY, DAVID CARSON

By Edward Jablonski. New York: Henry Holt, 1999. [viii, 406 p. ISBN 0-8050-4077-3. $35.]

Capping an active decade in Irving Berlin research, Edward Jablonski's monograph is the third on the composer to appear in as many years. Charles Hamm issued a remarkable study in 1997 (Irving Berlin: Songs from the Melting Pot: The Formative Years, 1907-1914 [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press]) that concentrated on the early years of Berlin's songwriting and explicated the social contexts within which his songs were created. Next to appear was the 1998 book by Philip Furia (Irving Berlin: A Life in Song [New York: Schirmer Books]), a narrative of the songwriter's life, distinguished by its many song analyses and its observations on Berlin's attainments as a wordsmith. Jablonski's entry is not only the most conventional biographical treatment of the three, but the second lengthiest Berlin monograph to date, trailing only Laurence Bergreen's 1990 volume As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin (New York: Viking). In fourteen chapters plus "prelude" and "coda," the author covers the range of Be rlin's life, from his impoverished family's emigration from Russia when he was just 5 years old to his peaceful death in a five-story Manhattan townhouse at age 101.

Jablonski's attention to biographical detail, as well as to broader historical and cultural contexts, is laudable. Consider the striking section at the beginning of the book in which he recounts the songwriter's earliest years. After describing the pogroms that drove Berlin's family from Russia, Jablonski offers a hypothetical reconstruction of the harrowing journey to the New World, the examinations on Ellis Island, and life in the tenements of New York's Lower East Side. When covering Berlin's later professional endeavors, Jablonski's commentary is equally replete. Readers who appreciate bounteous descriptions of stage and screen shows will be especially rewarded. The two shows that receive the most discussion are This Is the Army and Annie Get Your Gun. The former, a World War II revue whose proceeds were donated to Allied war efforts, is reported in abundant detail, with explication of the original Broadway production, the him version, and the successful, if sometimes enervating, international stage tour (which, in Italy, came within range of German aircraft).

Particularly welcome is Jablonski's debunking of vexing myths that have persisted in the Berlin literature. He puts in perspective the colorful exaggerations of the songwriter's friend and first biographer, Alexander Woollcott, as well as specimens of hyperbole from various other sources. He also counters song-related fables, considering, for example, differing accounts of the origin of "Blue Skies," and he quotes Berlin himself as dismissing the story that "There's No Business like Show Business" was cut from Annie Get Your Gun and almost literally lost before being reinstated.

Another attractive feature is the spotlight Jablonski shines on the musicians behind the songwriter. Berlin allegedly never learned to notate music, nor was he a skilled pianist; thus, he required the help of "musical secretaries" to develop the arrangements that were circulated as sheet music. These individuals are generally the neglected figures of the music business, but here they receive mention. Jablonski prominently cites Berlin's principal assistants--Clifford Hess, Arthur Johnston, and longtime amanuensis Helmy Kresa-- and credits William Schultz, arranger of the sheet-music version of "Alexander's Ragtime Band." The reader also discovers the aid provided by those who became famous songwriters themselves, such as George Gershwin, who scored "That Revolutionary Rag," and Harry Ruby, musical secretary for the show Yip! Yip! Yaphank. Books on celebrated figures often engage in gratuitous name-dropping, but here the interjections are quite appropriate, helping to correct many past oversights.

Despite the generally high quality of Jablonski's writing anti research, problems do arise. The author's descriptions are occasionally imprecise, if not incorrect. He claims, for example, that the famous songranking radio show, Your Hit Parade, "premiered that July [of 1935]" (p. 172), whereas its first broadcast was actually many weeks earlier, on 20 April. And although Ethel Merman was in several films after There's No Business like Show Business (1954), he refers to it as her "last film" (p. 283); even if he meant Merman's last musical film, he still would be neglecting some of her notable televised musical productions, including Annie Get Your Gun (1967). These and other dubious assertions may not be of great consequence to Berlin's biographical chronicle, but they do reveal occasional imprecision in the author's scholarship. Most detrimental to the cause of exactitude is the book's lack of endnotes to indicate sources of information or amplify comments in the main text; Jablonski includes source summari es only (pp. 371-75), providing for each chapter a brief paragraph that suggests the general provenance of selected information.

Furthermore, Jablonski enters seemingly unfamiliar waters whenever he describes Berlin's songs as music. For example, he asserts that "Alexander's Ragtime Band" was initially rejected because "it was longer than the standard thirty-two bars" (p. 43). Setting aside debate on the extent to which length was a commercial criterion of the day, he is simply wrong in his claim: the refrain consists of exactly thirty-two bars. (It is introduced by a sixteen-bar verse, but this too was common.) More often, Jablonski's musical descriptions are not absolutely incorrect, but instead express features in ways that will seem odd to a stylistically competent musician who knows the songs. Chapter 9 provides a convenient repository of several such descriptions, should the reader wish to explore them further.

Subsequent to the main text is an appendix in three sections, beginning with a song inventory, a feature that appeared also in the Hamm and Furia books (in the latter, compiled by Ken Bloom), Hamm's listing was limited to Berlin's early songs, but Jablonski's and Furia-Bloom's are purportedly complete; thus, it is regrettable to note that neither matches the extent of Steven Suskin's inventory of 930 copyrighted songs (Berlin, Kern, Rodgers, Hart, and Hammer stein. A Complete Song Catalogue [Jefferson, NC.: McFarland, 1990]). Jablonski's list contains only ca. 730 main entries, ca. 30 "addenda" (from "never-produced scores" [P. 361]), and ca. 35 songs that were deleted prior to the final versions of stage and film productions. Several features, however, make it more useful than the slightly Longer list of Furia-Bloom. In addition to naming deleted show songs, Jablonski indicates songs that were interpolated into other productions; for each show, he gives dates, venues, and principal creative personnel, and u nder each show title, he lists songs in order of appearance. Part 2 of the appendix is a discography listing "representative recordings" available on compact disc; it is divided into "Collections," "Soundtracks," and "Stage Musicals," and each entry is annotated. Finally, part 3 lists sixteen Berlin shows that are available on videocassette, ranging chronologically from The Cocoanuts (1929) to White Christmas (1954).

Jablonski's book, along with those of Hamm and Furia, completes an engaging triumvirate of recent Berlin monographs in which the songwriter has finally begun to receive the authoritative study he deserves. Each casts a slightly different light on its subject. Jablonski offers the most straightforward biographical treatment, clarifying many details. Accordingly, his book will be an indispensable addition to the shelves of any Berlin scholar.