Michael Feinstein's American Songbook DVD set

This Three-Park Series on PBS is subtitled "Cultural History, Intimate Biography, and a front-row seat at great live performances." It is all that and more. The cultural history revolves around how the "American Songbook" was once focused on movies and plays, how it became a propaganda arm of the Allies in WWII, and how things changed after that war.

The intimate biography is of Michael Feinstein, not that intimate perhaps, but focusing on his acquisition of artifacts from the 20th century American Songbook, in order to keep the 21st century from forgetting them. This is the part that engaged me the most. Feinstein knocks on doors of collections both grandly indexed and-- just as likely-- sadly dilapidated. He zeroes right in on items of merit, if you believe the DVD, but editing must have helped. Though his scouting is far more glamorous than my own similar journeys, the end result is, for old musical memorabilia, the same. A temporary reprieve from the landfill.

People just don't have time to see what's on those old tape reels, acetates, records. Confronted with hundreds of pieces of historic sheet music from a relative, the inheritor is often overwhelmed. But I'm not. Michael Feinstein is most certainly not. We wade through these things because "lost" and "lost but not forgotten" are basically the same, in our narrow view. As Nicholson Baker has written, preservation of originals is something to be done for its own sake, even after all the proper digitizing has been duly accomplished.

Disk Two has two hours of archival clips showing some of the wartime uses of music for propaganda, such as Army sing-a-long films (long before Mitch Miller). The care taken in song delivery and offering the singer as a surrogate for the girl back home is striking. It is easy to imagine Frank Capra directing these. Other gorgeous live clips include Frank Sinatra in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s (Feinstein has a show called The Sinatra Project), and examples from Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman, Rosemary Clooney, Alice Faye and many more.

The clips of Michael Feinstein's show are also very good, showing a performer in complete command of his material. Interestingly, his approach to romance, though fully drawn, lacks a female counterpart. He is only shown singing either alone or with other guys. I miss the guy-girl thing from network television in the 1950s and 60s. Those made-for-TV duos were strange bedfellows often as not, but the song seemed more "acted" sometimes.

Not much of a quibble for 5 hours of viewing, which I found myself watching with a permanent smile. It was sent along via a dear friend and patron of our store, who ordered me a copy of this great program directly from the producer, shopPBS.org. I have a link above if you want to buy it from amazon. Stash it with your other great 21st century collections of 20th century standards-- by Sting, Rod Stewart, Diana Krall, John Pizzarelli-- and everyone else in the gang that sang Heart of My Heart.

Mitch Miller, oboe player, music exec, host of "Sing Along With Mitch"

Heard of Mitch Miller's passing. Junkers, scouts and collectors know he lives on. His cartoonish visage, on the cover of "Sing Along With Mitch" albums, haunts every thrift store in America where vinyl records can be found. Astute collectors can even find the oboe concerti he recorded with great orchestras. Jazz fans can hear him on the Charlie Parker with strings recordings. Just put a name together with Mitch Miller and there is a story. Mitch Miller/Frank Sinatra. Mitch Miller/Rosemary Clooney. Mitch Miller/Clive Davis. Mitch Miller/Goddard Lieberson. Mitch Miller/Guy Mitchell. Mitch Miller/Columbia Records.
In our store at moneyblows.com, his legacy abounds in many wonderful Columbia Records. Mitch Miller made a huge impression, as artist and repertoire chief at Columbia (later, CBS Records) for most of the 1950s til the mid 1960s. Significantly, his employer invented the long playing record. For 3 years, he had a television show version of "Sing Along With Mitch."
He had a career any oboe player might envy. As I listen to his many contributions to popular music, whether it's the keening banjos behind the male choruses of "Sing Along" or the rocking celeste on Rosemary Clooney's hit, "C'mon A My House," I can imagine the sensitive ear of a double reed player in the agonizing quest to make a difficult instrument into a voice-like utterance.
In what I suspect is a more indirect influence, many Columbia Records of Ray Conniff and Percy Faith explore the blends of instruments and wordless vocals which have come back into fashion among some of  today's big band composers.
In the big picture of things, Mitch Miller demonstrated how popular music was created in the corporate environment. It's illustrated in this story from another corporate musical creature at Columbia, Teo Macero. Teo reported to Mitch Miller while creating jazz classics such as "Take Five."
And, while it is quite difficult to gauge the role of artistry in a monolithic corporate environment, there's no mistaking excellence and quality where it appears.
As a baby boomer, born a month after Rosemary Clooney had her breakout hit with Mitch Miller, I had my formative years and ears under the spell of MOR, easy listening music, rife with smooth strings, sparkling tone colors, beautiful voices, songwriting and composing which optimized the America which was an ethnic "melting pot.". By the time Mitch was cajoling everyone to sing along, I like others in my generation were chomping at the bit. Top 40 radio was playing something else. Top 40 radio was advertising freedom from Mitch Miller, who hated rock 'n roll. We may have been rescued by Pat Boone and Marty Robbins, but at least it wasn't our parents' music.