Songbook Summit: Fifteen Pioneers of American Sound

The debate over what constitutes American music raged particularly fiercely in the early years of the 20th century as jazz invaded our ears. It took on particularly harsh tones in the classical-music world because that insular group—or at least its nervous ideologues in academia—clung to a belief that only the white European canon should prevail. Jazz knocked them off their pedestals. What constitutes American music? I’m not falling into that trap. There are too many sounds, too many gestures to catalogue. Which is as it should be. Like the country itself (at least in its original intent), it’s varied and welcoming. So let’s zero in on jazz and popular song, and consider a moment in time when they got together to produce a chunk of memorable material that continues to live in our ears. The story begins with immigrants, who “brought influences of European classical, folk, and religious music to the American shores. Their songs were popularized and sold in Tin Pan Alley, a group of music publishing houses located on Manhattan’s West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.” Thus explains Will Anderson in the introduction to Songbook Summit: Fifteen Pioneers of American Sound, an easygoing introduction to core performers and songwriters who helped define what’s now termed the American Songbook. Will Anderson is himself a jazz musician, a young, very talented woo