Well, it happened… the first day of autumn has come and gone.
I believe this calls for a song… so I’m sharing one of my favorites, Kurt Weill’s “September Song” from Knickerbocker Holiday.
HERE – Suzanne sings September Song with Ron Kerber, sax and Harold Evans, piano
The show, “Knickerbocker Holiday” opened October 19th, 1938. That means this evergreen song is already 80 years old -a sweet old gal. Here’s a snapshot of October 1938: Kurt Weill had recently fled Nazi Germany and was in the US, making a new life and a new name for himself in the American Music Theater. The Texaco Star Theatre just made its first radio broadcast. And Leonard Bernstein, 20 years old, had just written to Aaron Copland about his “disappointment” in the state of “Art, Man, and Life” (with capital letters).
Wise Aaron Copland replied:
“As for your general disappointment, I can only advise, perspective, perspective and yet more perspective. Man has a long way to go. Art is quite young and life has its own dialectic. Aren’t you always curious to see what tomorrow will bring?”
Well, yes, I must say, I’m curious.