1938 - Music

Music

Hollywood musicals: Ray Enright's Hard to Get with Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, songs that include "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby"; Wesley Ruggles's Sing You Sinners with Bing Crosby, Fred MacMurray, Donald O'Connor, songs that include the Franke Harling-Sam Coslow title song, "Small Fry" and "Two Sleepy People," by Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by Frank Loesser; Chuck Jones's animated short Porky's Hare Hunt introduces Bugs Bunny. Spokane-born animator-musician Charles Martin Jones, 26, joined Leon Schlesinger Productions 5 years ago and will continue with Warner Brothers for 50 years, creating other cartoon characters whose lines will become almost as memorable as "What's up, Doc?" Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first full-length animated cartoon feature. The 83-minute film employs 2 million drawings, its $1.5 million cost has nearly bankrupted the studio, it opens December 21 at Hollywood's Cathay Circle Theater, Snow White sings "Some Day My Prince Will Come" and "One Song," dwarfs Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Dopey, Sneezy, and Bashful sing "Heigh-Ho" and "Whistle While You Work," music by Frank Churchill, lyrics by Larry Morey. Snow White will gross $2 million in its first 6 months.

Stage musicals: Nine Sharp 1/26 at London's Little Theatre, with Cyril Ritchard, Hermione Baddeley, music by Walter Leigh, book and lyrics by Herbert Farjeon, 405 perfs.; Operette 3/16 at His Majesty's Theatre, London, with Peggy Wood, music and lyrics by Noël Coward, songs that include "The Stately Homes of England," 133 perfs.; I Married an Angel 5/11 at New York's Shubert Theater, with Dennis King, Berlin-born Norwegian ballet dancer Vera Zorina (Brigitta Hartwig), 21, Walter Slezak, Vivienne Segal, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, songs that include "Spring Is Here" and the title song, 338 perfs.; Helzapoppin 9/22 at New York's 46th Street Theater, with Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson who delight audiences with their slapstick and sight gags, Mary Boland, music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Irving Kahal and Charles Tobias, songs that include "I'll Be Seeing You," 1,404 perfs.; Knickerbocker Holiday 10/19 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Walter Huston, Chicago-born baritone Ray Middleton, 31, (as narrator Washington Irving), music by Kurt Weill, book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, songs that include "September Song," 168 perfs.; Under Your Hat 10/24 at London's Palace Theatre, with Cicely Courtneidge, Leonora Corbett, and Jack Hulbert, songs by Vivian Ellis; Leave It to Me 11/9 at New York's Imperial Theater, with Texas-born ingénue Mary Martin, 24, doing a simulated striptease to Cole Porter's song "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" (other songs include "Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love,") 307 perfs. (Porter was injured last year in a fall from a horse and will be crippled for the rest of his life); The Boys from Syracuse 11/23 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Jimmy Savo, Eddie Albert, dancer George Church, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, songs that include "Falling in Love with Love," "Sing for Your Supper," "This Can't Be Love," 235 perfs.

Broadway librettist Edgar Smith dies at his Bayside, N.Y., home March 8 at age 80; former music hall performer and comedienne May Irwin at New York October 22 at age 76.

Opera: Mathis der Maler (Matthias the Painter) 5/28 at Zürich's Stadtheater, with music and libretto by Paul Hindemith based on the life of the German painter Matthias Grünewald who died in 1528. The opera had been scheduled to open at Berlin in 1934 but was banned by the Nazis. Polish-born German soprano (Olga Maria) Elisabeth (Friedrika) Schwarzkopf, 23, makes her debut at the Berlin Städtische Oper singing the role of the Flower Maiden in the 1882 Wagner opera Parsifal and is soon moved up from second soprano to singing leading roles.

Bass Feodor Chaliapin dies at Paris April 12 at age 65.

Ballet: St. Francis 7/21 at London's Drury Lane Theatre, with music by Paul Hindemith, choreography by Leonide Massine; Billy the Kid 10/9 at the Chicago Civic Opera House, with music by Aaron Copland, choreography by Eugene Loring.

Illinois-born New York dancer-choreographer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, 28, receives a Julius Rosenwald Foundation fellowship to study primitive dances in the Caribbean and wins an appointment as dance director of the Federal Theater Project. She will organize her own all-black dance company in 1940.

First performances: Symphony No. 3 by Howard Hanson 3/26 in an NBC Orchestra radio concert; The Incredible Flutist (ballet music) by Walter Piston 3/30 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Symphony No. 1 by Piston 4/8 at Symphony Hall; Quartet in G minor for Piano and Strings by Ernest Bloch 5/5 at Los Angeles; Concerto No. 1 in D major for Piano and Orchestra by Benjamin Britten in August at Queen's Hall, London.

Pianist Leopold Godowsky dies at New York November 21 at age 67.

Benny Goodman and His Orchestra give the first Carnegie Hall jazz concert January 17 with guest performers who include Count Basie and members of the Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras (see 1935). Pianist Jess Stacy plays "Sing Sing Sing."

Tennessee-born jazz trombonist William "Dickie" Wells, 30, joins the Count Basie band with whom he will perform (with some interruptions) until 1950.

Glenn Miller begins touring with a big band of his own after years of playing trombone and arranging music for Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and for Ray Noble. Now 39, the Iowa-born Miller will achieve enormous success next year with his recordings of "In the Mood," "Sunrise Serenade," (by Frankie Carle and Jack Lawrence) and "Moonlight Serenade" (which will become his theme song) (see 1942).

Pennsylvania-born arranger Lester Raymond "Les" Brown, 26, forms a jazz-oriented dance band that he will promote as "the band of renown" and continue to lead for more than 60 years (see 1944).

Bandleader Artie Shaw hears Atlantic City, N.J.-born singer Helen Forrest (originally Fogel), 21, perform at the Madrillon Club in Washington, D.C., and invites her to replace Billie Holliday, who has quit after suffering racial indignities on the band's road tours (black artists are often unable to stay at the same hotels or eat at the same restaurants as whites). Forrest will record 38 singles with the Shaw orchestra, and when he dissolves his big band briefly next year she will join Benny Goodman and then Harry James.

Woody Guthrie identifies himself with the labor movement and travels the country singing his songs "Hard Traveling," "Blowing Down This Dusty Road," "Union Maid," and "So Long (It's Been Good to Know You)" (see 1936). Guthrie will support the cause of organized labor with his Talking Union album and with personal appearances.

Popular songs: "I Can Dream, Can't I?" by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Irving Kahal (for the short-lived Broadway musical Right This Way); "That Old Feeling" by Fain, lyrics by Kahal (for the film Vogues of 1938); "Love Walked In" and "Our Love Is Here to Stay" by the late George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin (for the film The Goldwyn Follies); "Jeepers Creepers" by Harry Warren, lyrics by Johnny Mercer (for the film Going Places); "I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)" by Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by Jane Brown Thompson; "You Go to My Head" by J. Fred Coots, lyrics by Haven Gillespie; "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" by Duke Ellington, lyrics by Irving Miller, Henry Nemo, John Redmond; "One O'Clock Jump" by Count Basie; "Camel Hop" by Mary Lou Williams; "Sent for You Yesterday (and Here You Come Today)" by Eddie Durham, Count Basie, and vocalist Jimmy Rushing; "F. D. R. Jones" by Harold Rome; "The Flat Foot Floogie" by Detroit-born guitarist Slim (originally Bulee) Gaillard, 23, and Leroy "Slam" Stewart, lyrics by Bud Green (who has been forced to change the word floozie to floogie); "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" by Ella Fitzgerald and Van Alexander; "Cherokee" by Ray Noble (whose song will be the theme for bandleader-tenor saxophonist Charlie Barnet); "I Hadn't Anyone Till You" by Ray Noble; "Thanks for the Memory" by Ralph Rainger, lyrics by Leo Robin (title song for a film starring comedian Bob Hope, who will make it his theme song); "Shops Close Too Early" by Trinidadian Calypso singer-songwriter Aldwyn Roberts, 14, who is named calypso king. His parents have forced him to drop out of school, he has entertained water-company workers as they laid pipes, a promoter hires him at $1 per night to work in a nightclub, and Roberts will gain fame as "Lord Kitchener" (see 1944); Gracie Fields records "The Biggest Aspidistra in the World" by Jimmy Harper, Will Haines, and Tommy Connor.

Song collector Alan Lomax records a series of interviews with jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton for the Library of Congress in August, but Morton will die in 1941, and the interviews will not be released to the public until 7 years later. Morton records "After You're Gone" and "Tiger Rag" at Baltimore in August and in December records his own songs "Creepy Feeling," "Finger Buster," and "Honky Tonk Music."

Songwriter Richard Whiting dies at Beverly Hills, Calif., February 10 at age 46; jazz trumpet pioneer and songwriter Joseph "King" Oliver at Savannah April 8 at age 53 (approximate); Delta Blues songwriter Robert Johnson at Greenwood, Miss., August 16 at age 27 after drinking strychnine-laced whiskey (he has dallied briefly with the wife of a local juke-joint owner and been poisoned); songwriter Con Conrad dies at Van Nuys, Calif., September 28 at age 47.

The samba and the conga are introduced on U.S. dancefloors.