The Great American Songbook is the loosely defined

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

of significant early-20th-century American jazz standards, popular songs, and

show tune A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context. T ...

Definition

According to the

Great American Songbook Foundation The Great American Songbook Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the music of the Great American Songbook. The Songbook Foundation's administrative offices are located on the Gallery lev ...

The "Great American Songbook" is the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century that have stood the test of time in their life and legacy. Often referred to as "American Standards", the songs published during the Golden Age of this genre include those popular and enduring tunes from the 1920s to the 1950s that were created for
Broadway theatre Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...
, musical theatre, and Hollywood musical film.

Culture writer Martin Chilton defines the term "Great American Songbook" as follows: "Tunes of Broadway musical theatre, Hollywood movie musicals and Tin Pan Alley (the hub of songwriting that was the music publishers' row on New York's West 28th Street)". Chilton adds that these songs "became the core repertoire of jazz musicians" during the period that "stretched roughly from 1920 to 1960". Although several collections of music have been published under the "Great American Songbook" title, the term does not refer to any actual book or specific list of songs. The Great American Songbook includes standards by

Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russ ...

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer,

Hoagy Carmichael Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first ...

, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein II, among others.Friedwald, Will
"Jazz Vocalists"
'' New York''. June 14, 1993. p. 6A. In Alec Wilder's 1972 study, ''American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950'', the songwriter and critic lists and ranks the artists he believes belong to the Great American Songbook canon. A composer, Wilder emphasized analysis of composers and their creative efforts in this work. Radio personality and Songbook devotee Jonathan Schwartz and singer

Tony Bennett Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American retired singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a painter, having created works under his birt ...

have both described this genre as "America's classical music".

List of songs

Revivals

In 1970, rock musician Ringo Starr surprised the public by releasing an album of Songbook songs from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, '' Sentimental Journey''. Reviews were mostly poor or even disdainful,} but the album reached number 22 on the US

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of ar ...

and number 7 in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

, with sales of 500,000. Other pop singers who established themselves in the 1960s or later followed with albums reviving songs from the Great American Songbook, beginning with

Harry Nilsson Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), sometimes credited as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who reached the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal ov ...

in 1973 and continuing into the 21st century.

Linda Ronstadt Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American ...

, Rod Stewart, and

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

made several such albums. Of Ronstadt's 1983 album, '' What's New'', her first in a trilogy of standards albums recorded with arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle, Stephen Holden of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote:

Notes

References

External links

''Martini in the Morning'' radio program featuring the Great American Songbook

PBS Special on the Great American Songbook

The American Songbook Preservation Society

The Great American Songbook Foundation

The Society for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook
Jazz standards 1920s in American music 1930s in American music 1940s in American music 1950s in American music 1960s in American music Nostalgia in the United States