Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood (SUNY series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture)

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About Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs

Product Description Documents the influence of Jewish music on American popular song. From Publishers Weekly In his introduction to this meticulously researched study of Jewish-influenced theatrical and popular music from 1914 to 1964, scholar and composer Gottlieb observes, "For the first time since ancient history, when synagogue cantillation influenced church plain chant, Jews contributed significantly to the music of the mainstream." To support his case, he analyzes melodies written for synagogues and the Yiddish theater and finds them in tunes that may not "sound Jewish." He discusses innumerable composers and artists, familiar and obscure, observant and nonobservant, converts and even non-Jews. One chapter is devoted to Cole Porter, "who wrote a little-known ballad, 'Hot-House Rose' (1926), which tells the bitter tale of a Jewish sweatshop (or hothouse) girl." The melodic passages cited on almost every page will be of most value to the musically sophisticated. On the other hand, everyone will be able to appreciate the accompanying 70-minute CD, which includes a marvelous, very Yiddish recording by Judy Garland of Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen, as well as Leonard Bernstein at his piano singing Marc Blitzstein's poignant A Zipper-fly. This is a loving, comprehensive and fascinating book. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review “Gottlieb is a superbly equipped tune detector … No serious student of the music of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood can afford to bypass this landmark study.” ― American Music “Gottlieb’s writing style is amiable, anecdotal, and breezy, and his enthusiasm for his topic is contagious.” ― Kurt Weill Newsletter “Gottlieb’s impressive book Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish traces the influence of Jewish secular and synagogue music on Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood with pointed wit, but underlying seriousness.” ― Turok’s Choice “…expands Gottlieb’s long-standing and popular lecture on the importance of Jewish sacred, folk, and popular idioms in American popular music … Gottlieb teases out many historical threads not obvious to the casual listener.” ― CHOICE “Accompanied by a CD with 70 minutes of great musical examples, [Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish] is full of wisdom, wit, practical information, clever musical twists and turns and will become a classic. It’s a literary jewel and laypersons as well as seasoned cantors are guaranteed to love it and learn from it.” ― Koleinu “…exhaustive and lively … Out of this impressive musicological sleuthing comes a highly readable, fascinating account of a sometimes hidden, sometimes obvious chain of cultural influences … accessible to all readers.” ― Jewish Book World “In his introduction to this meticulously researched study of Jewish-influenced theatrical and popular music from 1914–1964 … Gottlieb observes, ‘For the first time since ancient history, when synagogue cantillation influenced church plain chant, Jews contributed significantly to the music of the mainstream.’ … The melodic passages cited on almost every page will be of most value to the musically sophisticated. On the other hand, everyone will be able to appreciate the accompanying 70-minute CD, which includes a marvelous, very Yiddish recording by Judy Garland … as well as Leonard Bernstein at his piano … This is a loving, comprehensive and fascinating book.” ― Publishers Weekly “…as delightful as it is informative … This is a book that people will want to flip through and stay to read in large chunks. It’s that good and, I would add, that important.” ― Hadassah Magazine “Jack Gottlieb’s Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish is an always informative, always entertaining account of that remarkable musical evolution of the simple songs of the shtetl and the fervent chants of the synagogue into many of the most memorable songs of the ‘golden age’ of American popular song. It is a volume to be studied and savored.” ― Milton Bab