Background
Jerome David Kern was born on January 27, 1885 in New York City. The son of Henry and Fannie (Kakeles) Kern.
Jerome David Kern was born on January 27, 1885 in New York City. The son of Henry and Fannie (Kakeles) Kern.
Kern graduated from the College of Music in New York City in 1904 and then continued his studies in Europe. The musical numbers he composed for the London theaters were successful.
Following publication of his first song in 1902, Kern was sent to Europe to imbibe its musical atmosphere. On his return in 1905 he worked as a song plugger for several firms and wrote his first song hit, Mow'd You Like to Spoon with Me? In 1905 he returned to England (he had become an extreme Anglophile), but he was brought back to America by impresario Charles Frohman.
Until the outbreak of World War I, many of Kern’s songs were written to be interpolated into the New York productions of London shows. In 1914 another great hit, They Didn't Believe Me, made Kern a force to be reckoned with and the following year saw the first of what became known as the Princess Theater shows. These were a series of lightweight, tuneful and witty musicals that Kern wrote with Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse to great popular acclaim. During the 1920s he began his collaboration with lyricists Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach and his hit shows Sally and Sunny (both starring Marilyn Miller) were topped in 1927 by his most ambitious work, Show Boat.
Along with his undeniably important role in the fusing together of the various styles that created the American musical, Show Boat guaranteed Kern a place of honor in the history of musical theater. It dispensed with many trite conventions of the form and integrated its songs into the plot in a fashion hitherto unattempted. Further stage successes such as Music in the Air and Roberta followed and while in Hollywood, Kern produced a number of fine scores, notably Swing Time and Cover Girl. After World War II, during which he and Hammerstein won the Oscar for best song for their heartfelt The Last Time I Saw Paris, Kern was preparing to work on a musical about Annie Oakley when he died of a stroke.
(SOME OF JEROME KERN’S FAMOUS SONGS: “Smoke Gets in Your ...)
Quotations:
"The fact that the theatregoing public likes my music is no credit to me. There are many other composers who write better music that the public doesn't like. "
"Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music. Emotionally, he honestly absorbs the vibrations emanating from the people, manners and life of his time and, in turn, gives these impressions back to the world -- simplified, clarified and glorified. "
"Cartoonist Walt Disney has made the twentieth century's only important contribution to music. Disney has made use of music as language. "
"Go on being uncommercial. There's a lot of money in it. "
Jerome David Kern was a member of the American Society of Composers.
Jerome David Kern was married to Eva Leale, they have a daughter Elizabeth.