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Life Coaching for Jazz Studies Students

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Biographies

Reading and Viewing

Philip Furia, Graham Wood

Irving Berlin: A Life in Song

Music Sales Ltd


Edward Jablonski

Irving Berlin: American Troubadour

Henry Holt & Company


Mary Ellin Barrett

Irving Berlin: A Daughter's Memoir

Simon & Schuster


Laurence Bergreen

As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin

Da Capo Press


Edward Arnold, Evelyn Beresford, Eleanora Brown, Louis Calhern, Sue Casey

Annie Get Your Gun

Warner Home Video

DVD


Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor, Walter Woolf King

Call Me Madam (1953)

DVD


Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

Top Hat

DVD


Irving Berlin

Biography - Irving Berlin: An American Song (A&E DVD Archives)

A&E Home Video

DVD


Joe Louis, Kate Smith, Irving Berlin

THIS IS THE ARMY

Ovation Home Video

DVD


Fred Sokolow

Irving Berlin Songbook

Stefan Grossman Guit

DVD


Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, Jack Haley

Alexander's Ragtime Band

20th Century Fox

DVD

Listening

Rosemary Clooney

Sings the Music of Irving Berlin

Concord Records


Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook


The Swingle Singers

Sing Irving Berlin

Import [Generic]


Peter Lawford, Ann Miller, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin

Easter Parade: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack


Irving Berlin, Anastasia Barzee, Brian d'Arcy James, Jeffry Denman, Karen Morrow, Meredith Patterson

Irving Berlin's White Christmas

Ghostlight


Irving Berlin

Holiday Inn & White Christmas

Umvd Import


Cal Tjader with Carmen McRae

Heat Wave

Concord Records

Biography

Irving Berlin

Israel Baline

Composer, Lyricist, Theater Owner, Performer

(1888 - 1989)

Irving Berlin wrote the music and lyrics for the most quintessentially American songs: “God Bless America” (1938), “Easter Parade” (1933), “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (1936) and “White Christmas” (1942). But he was born into a poor cantor’s family in Siberia. When Russian Cossacks victimized the Jews, the family escaped to a new kind of poverty in America where all eight young children went to work.

Berlin became a singing waiter, taught himself piano, and published his first song in 1907. In 1909 he wrote a song in Yiddish dialect for Fanny Brice, who credits him with starting her comedic career, and in 1914 he wrote his first Broadway show. While a soldier in WWI he produced an all-military show in which he sang “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning” (1918).

Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1919) enjoyed international success, and from then on, with the exception of a slow period from 1929 until 1932, songs for stage and film tumbled out of him: “What’ll I Do” (1923), “Blue Skies” (1926), “Shaking the Blues Away” (1927), “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (1930), “How Deep Is the Ocean” (1932), “Heat Wave” (1933), and “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” (1942). Between 1935 and 1938 he scored three Astaire/Rogers musicals which produced “Cheek to Cheek,” “Isn’t It a Lovely Day,” “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” and “Change Partners.”

During WWII Berlin produced another all-soldier show, This Is the Army (1943), to raise relief money. He was decorated by Gen. George C. Marshall and by President Eisenhower for his patriotic efforts. Berlin also donated all of his royalties from “God Bless America” to the Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls.

He returned to Broadway with the popular Annie Get Your Gun (1946) and continued to write hits for Miss Liberty (1949), Call Me Madam (1950), and Mr. President (1962), his last show. In 1974 he donated his piano to the Smithsonian.

- Sandra Burlingame

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