Jerome Kern: His Life and Music

by Gerald Bordman

Book Overview

In what has become the biography of the father of American musical theatre, Gerald Bordman demonstrates a keen understanding and sympathy for Kern the man, as well as Kern the musician. No "rags-to-riches" folk hero, Jerome Kern grew up on the periphery of the American-Jewish elite, achieved early success, and moved throughout his life among the era's leading personalities and performers. Bordman follows Kern's career from its beginnings on Broadway...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195026497
• ISBN13: 9780195026498
• Release Date: May 1980
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 438 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The whole story

The author is a distinguished historian of American musicals. In this volume we learn not only about Jerome Kern but about the theater and music industry from the early and mid-twentieth century. Bordman has a full command of the primary and secondary sources, and it's doubtful that any other historian will attempt a more exhaustive Kern biogaphy. But there's the fault: the story is overwhelmed by details. It takes a dedicated reader to wade through the barrage of facts about Kern and the theater. I made it, but many others, I'm afraid, won't. The word "definitive," controversial as it is, may surely be used in this case. Bordman is a fine writer as well as researcher, and this helps enormously.