Jerome Kern: A Biography by Michael Freedland

Jerome Kern:  A Biography by Michael Freedland is a 182-page hardcover published in 1978 by Stein and Day.  The dust jacket shows closed tears and surface rubbing.  Inside, the pages are clean and unmarked and the binding is tight.  Book Summary Jerome Kern's influence on the popular music of the twentieth century has been immense, and successive songwriters have acknowledged their debt to him.  George Gershwin said that everything he wrote in his early years sounded as though it had come from the pen of Jerome Kern.  Richard Rodgers said "Along with my love of Jerome Kern's music there is a feeling of gratitude...the influence of such a hero on such a hero-worshiper is not easy to calculate, but it was a deep and lasting one."  The New York Times has called Kern "the key composer of the American musical theatre in the 20th century." Kern was not only a great songwriter.  He was a knowledgeable collector of rare books, stamps, and coins, and a connoisseur of antique silver.  A brilliant conversationalist, he could sometimes be a daunting figure, and there were those who found him aloof and intolerant.  Here are stories of his love affairs, his litigation, his brilliance, arrogance, and humanity.  This absorbing biography captures the many sides of Kern's quixotic personality, recreating at the same time the magic of an extraordinary era.  ISBN:  0-8128-2776-7