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Music Corner by Herb Tardiff
Early in the 20th century, American music really took off as its own genre with the development of movies with sound. Staged musicals were also in vogue as Americans enjoyed relative prosperity before the Great Recession. Many of the great American composers took advantage of these opportunities to compose some of our most cherished masterpieces.
One such composer was Harold Arlen born Hymen Arluck, the son of a synagogue cantor, born in Buffalo, New York on February 15, 1905. He emerged as one of the greatest of all American composers and songwriters known for writing extraordinarily complex melodies and harmonies that somehow remained accessible to a broad popular audience. By age 7, he was singing in his father’s synagogue choir and by age 15 he had become a professional pianist and entertainer in nightclubs and lake steamers.
Some of Arlen’s film credits include:
- The Wizard of Oz,
- Let’s Fall In Love
- Blues In the Night
- Star Spangled Rhythm
- Cabin In the Sky
- Up in Arms
- Kismet
- My Blue Heaven
- Gay Purr-ee
- Down Among the Sheltering Palms and
- A Star is Born.
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