Irving Berlin

The Russian-born Jewish songwriting phenomenon Irving Berlin (1888-1989), who began his musical career as a singing waiter on New York's Lower East Side, was one of the most significant contributors to American popular music of the 20th century. A songwriter with an uncanny ear for vernacular idioms throughout his career, Berlin's early rag success, the 1910 Beautiful Rag, was closely followed by his spectacularly successful 1911 Alexander's Ragtime Band.

In My Harem, with its faux-oriental strains, harks back to Berlin's early days as a writer of bawdy and politically incorrect ditties.

Three pieces from the 1920s show the rapid evolution of Berlin's style into that of the Jazz Age:

The exuberant Charleston It All Belongs to Me was written for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927.

The bouncy and diabolical foxtrot Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil dates from 1922.

The famous Puttin’ on the Ritz (1929) was written for the United Artists picture of the same title, in which it was sung memorably by Harry Richman.

Notes by Roy Wiseman