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Arlen and Johnny Mercer
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Abstract
The collaboration with Johnny Mercer, beginning in 1940, marked a new phase in Arlen’s career. Songs like “Blues in the Night” fully integrate blues and jazz elements into his style. Arlen explores more extended forms (“tapeworms”) in numbers like “One for My Baby” and “That Old Black Magic.” With Mercer, Arlen writes a Black-cast musical St. Louis Woman (1946) that generates controversy because of its stereotypes but also produces important standards like “Come Rain or Come Shine.” In the 1950s St. Louis Woman is developed into Blues Opera, with the addition of recitatives and the interpolation of other Arlen numbers. Arlen and Mercer’s final collaboration was the musical Saratoga (1959), which lasted only a short time on Broadway.
Title: Arlen and Johnny Mercer
Description:
Abstract
The collaboration with Johnny Mercer, beginning in 1940, marked a new phase in Arlen’s career.
Songs like “Blues in the Night” fully integrate blues and jazz elements into his style.
Arlen explores more extended forms (“tapeworms”) in numbers like “One for My Baby” and “That Old Black Magic.
” With Mercer, Arlen writes a Black-cast musical St.
Louis Woman (1946) that generates controversy because of its stereotypes but also produces important standards like “Come Rain or Come Shine.
” In the 1950s St.
Louis Woman is developed into Blues Opera, with the addition of recitatives and the interpolation of other Arlen numbers.
Arlen and Mercer’s final collaboration was the musical Saratoga (1959), which lasted only a short time on Broadway.
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