The Great American Songbook. A conversation about what it is, what distinguishes it, and why its appeal persists.

All Programs VIA ZOOM.

Dates and Program titles:

Sept 14^th 12-2pm: 

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Great American Songbook. A conversation about what it is, what distinguishes it, and why its appeal persists.

October 19^th 12-2pm:

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Songwriters. A conversation about two of the greatest songwriters, composer George Gershwin and lyricist Ira Gershwin, and the role of literacy and jazz in popular songwriting. 

November 16^th 12-2pm:

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Singers. There were a lot of good ones from Rosemary Clooney to Frank Sinatra, but here’s the surprise. One of the greatest of them was Fred Astaire.

December 14^th 12-2pm:

Say it with a Beautiful Song: The Songs. The collaborations, the conversational lyric, the inventiveness, and the breadth of emotion. The song we’ll focus on is Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River.”

Michael Lasser is a writer and speaker. His most recent book, Say It with a Beautiful Song: The Art and Craft of the Great American Songbook, is now available. He is also the co-author (with Philip Furia) of America’s Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley (2006), and the author of America’s Songs II: From the 1890s to the Post-War Years (2013) and City Songs and American Life, 1900-1950 (2019). His nationally syndicated public radio show, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, was on the air from 1980-2021, and won a 1994 Peabody Award. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he is the former theater critic for the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and CITY, and speaks often at museums, arts centers, and universities around the country. He taught English in independent schools for forty years, including thirty-two of them at The Harley School. In 2010, he was named a Thomas P. Johnson Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Rollins College and in 2022 was a Visiting Scholar at The Waterford School near Salt Lake City, and the Trevor Day School in New York City.