Hall of Fame
Frank Sinatra
November/December 2015 FRANK SINATRA by Eric Comstock.
No one has done more to perpetuate the Great American Songbook than jazz musicians—(I always urge my students to listen to, work with, and learn from jazz musicians—and one vocalist: Frank Sinatra).
Billie Holiday
September/October 2015 BILLIE HOLIDAY by Melody Breyer-Grell. For all the hardships that she did endure, the thing she must and will be remembered for is her emotional genius.
Edith Piaf
September/October 2015 EDITH PIAF by Elizabeth Ahlfors. Piaf was a roller-coaster ride through a life of hard living, desperate loving and the despair of loss, poured out through her gritty songs.
Billy Strayhorn
July/August 2015 BILLY STRAYHORN by David Hajdu author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn William Thomas “Billy” Strayhorn, born in Dayton and raised in poverty in Pittsburgh, grew up yearning to live in Manhattan—as he imagined it from copies of The New Yorker that he bought with earnings from his paper route, a […]
Bart Howard
May/June 2015 BART HOWARD by Rob Lester He said that “the song poured out of” him “in twenty minutes,” but it sure has lasted: “Fly Me to the Moon” put composer-lyricist Bart Howard on the map with just that one audience-pleaser. Successful both as an uptempo number and its original setting as a romantic ballad, […]
Johnny Mathis
January/February 2014 JOHNNY MATHIS In 1956, a young man stepped in front of a microphone in a recording studio at Columbia Records in New York City and magic happened. With the guidance of Mitch Miller, who knew just what sort of song he should record, Johnny Mathis began a still-going-strong 57-year-long career. With his first […]
Jerry Herman
December 2011 JERRY HERMAN “We need a Little Christmas” and who better to usher in the season than Jerry Herman whose song has become part of our Christmas canon. He musicalized two of the iconic women characters in theater, Dolly and Mame. His songs have become part of the American Songbook, finding their way into […]
John Kander & Fred Ebb
December 2010 JOHN KANDER & FRED EBB Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb met in 1962 and a legendary songwriting team was born. Their first successful collaboration was on the song “My Coloring Book,” recorded by both Sandy Stewart and Barbra Streisand. But it will be the scores of the ground-breaking musicals they penned, […]
Frank Loesser
July 2010 FRANK LOESSER Where’s Charley?, Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Standouts in the pantheon of the American musical. It didn’t start out so successfully. His first Broadway outing was a flop, but it led to a Hollywood contract and his writing lyrics for over […]
Stephen Sondheim
April 2010 STEPHEN SONDHEIM by Noah Tree Shall we keep this simple? You want to go through the intriguing Stephen Sondheim canon again for his numerous precocities, all doubtless worthy of the appreciative cult scrutiny the works receive. Perfectly understandable to this writer who enthusiastically ghosted the reaction to the first Sondheim tribute as “waves […]
