Till the Clouds Roll By

I finished reading the last few pages of Michael Freedland's biography on Jerome Kern which I purchased a week or two ago. Held up to be the definitive bio on Kern, I was somewhat disappointed by the length and lack of detail, as well as the writing. Freedland certainly filled in a lot of gaps about Kern and dispelled the myth of his poor beginnings - his family had the street cleaning contract for NY city, over 5000 miles of roads -and were very well off. Kern does not come off well at Freedland's hands when you read between the lines. Vindictive, petty, a bully, parting and leaving his family behind, and an extrovert who loved to be the centre of attention, Kern seems to have suffered from small-man's syndrome and was petulant and obsessive about his music. He also had an ego the size of a house and the talent to match and Freedland is obviously in awe of that talent so his book makes mentions of Kern' faults without denigrating him.

The man who wrote "A Fine Romance", "I told Every Little Star", "Look for the Silver Lining", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Showboat", "They Didn't Believe Me", "Long Ago and Far Away" and "Ol Man River" also helped the careers of Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and even a young George Gershwin. He also worked with some of the best lyricists of the 20th Century in Oscar Hamerstein, P G Wodehouse, Ira Gershwin and Johnny Mercer with whom he co-wrote "I'm Old Fashioned".

A dedicated book collector, Jerome Kern collected and sold first editions as well as having one of the best coin and stamp collections in the USA. Hard working as a composer, he made certain he wrote a song at least every day and after his death a folder of about 100 unpublished songs were discovered. Kern died from a stroke in New York in 1945 a few blocks from where he was born whilst working on "Annie Get Your Gun"(which was ultimately finished by Irving Berlin).

The Freedland book is slim ( about 170 pages) and to me somewhat disappointing, but still considered one of the best works on Kern. A far cry from the syrupy film bio "Till the Clouds Roll By" (a great collection of Kern numbers with stars like Garland and Sinatra make it worth seeing), it will fill in the gaps in your education about Kern the man as well giving you a good understanding of his disciplined work life and his incredible successes as well as failures. Its been out of print for sometime now but Amazon still have hardback editions for sale.

Burn brightly, Pete.