Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz–A Songwriting Team

Like Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz worked alone before they agreed to work together. Dietz worked with Jerome Kern on Dear Sir (1924) and with Henry Souvaine and Jay Gomey in Merry-Go-Round (1927). Please click on the link to read more and listen to the clips.

At that point, Dietz worked with Schwartz on The Little Show (1929), The Second Little Show (1930), Three’s a Crowd (1930), The Band Wagon (1931), Flying Colors (1932), Revenge with Music (1934), At Home Abroad (1935) and Between the Devil (1937). However, they were not wed to each other and worked with other collaborators.

Schwartz worked with a number of other lyricists, such as Edward Heyman, E.Y. Harburg, Al Stillman, Laurence Stallings, Dorothy Fields, Frank Loesser, Ralph Rainger, Edward Eliscu and Leo Robin. Schwartz and Fields collaborated on the musicals, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951) and By the Beautiful Sea (1954).

Dietz went off to work with Jimmy McHugh and Vernon Duke in 1940 and 1944, but then returned to work with Schwartz on Inside U.S.A. (1948), The Gay Life (1961) and Jennie (1963).

While Schwartz would always write good music, his best songs were written with Dietz; and most of these hit songs were written in the 1930’s. Their best material was incorporated into their hit movie musical, The Band Wagon in 1953. The one exception was a new song that they wrote just for the movie, called “That’s Entertainment” (with a lyrical assist from Alan J. Lerner). Like Irving Berlin’s song “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “That’s Entertainment” became a big hit and was used by MGM in the 1970’s as the title of new movie, that consisted of a series of clips from its older musicals. We will get to the movie; but first, we are going to introduce you to the list of key songs (in order of appearance) from the 1931 Broadway revue: 1. “Sweet Music;” 2. “High and Low;” 3. “Hoops;” 4. “Confession;” 5. “New Sun in the Sky;” 6. “I Love Louisa;” 7. “Dancing in the Dark;” 8. “The Beggar Waltz;” and 9. “White Heat.”

Fred Astaire, who starred in the 1953 film, also starred with his sister, Adele, in the 1931 Broadway musical, The Band Wagon, the last show that they would appear in before she retired to get married. Contrary to popular belief, Fred did NOT sing or dance to “Dancing in the Dark” in the original show; John Barker sang it; Tillie Losch and Girls performed the dance.  Fred and Adele sang “Sweet Music,” “Hoops,” “I Love Louisa”  and “White Heat.” Fred sang “New Sun in the Sky” alone and danced “The Beggar Waltz” with Tillie Losch.

We are going to start our exploration by playing a 20 minute recording by Leo Reisman and his Orchestra, covering a compilation of the music from the Broadway revue. You will first hear a brief Overture (about one minute); then Leo will introduce Fred and Adele and Arthur and Howard; at around 1:50 minutes, Fred and Adele will sing “Sweet Music;” at around 4 minutes, you will hear an instrumental version of “High and Low;” at 5:15, Fred and Adele will sing “Hoops;” at 6:13, you will hear an instrumental version of “Confession;” at 7:16, Fred will sing “New Sun in the Sky;” at 8:30, Fred and Adele will sing “I Love Louisa;” at 9:54, the orchestra plays some lovely “Ballet Music;” at 12:12, the orchestra moves into “The Beggar Waltz;” at 14:58, Fred and Adele sing “White Heat,” with Arthur Schwartz at the piano; and at 16:30, you will hear “Dancing in the Dark.”

We recognize that some of the music will be new to you, so we are also going to reinforce the sound of two of the more important numbers, so that you can become more familiar with the music. (In other posts, we will play the music from the movie, so that you can see how Conrad Salinger and the MGM music department created a new show out of different pieces of “old cloth.”)

Let’s start first with Mary Martin leading a 1950 studio cast in a recording of “High and Low.”

This beautiful number is heard only in instrumental form in the movie, where it is uncredited (in the carriage ride, “High and Low” leads into “Dancing in the Dark”). Because it is so beautiful and because we love jazz so much, we are also going to provide you with a recording by Ben Selvin and his Orchestra. Here is a dance tempo, and the orchestra includes two wonderful side men, Eddie Lang on guitar and Joe Venuti on violin (solo around 2:30 minutes).

Then, we follow with Mary Martin singing “Confession” from the same 1950 studio recording.