361
T
he impact of two new technologies on American music early in the twen-
tieth century—the phonograph and radio—has been noted in the forego-
ing chapters. This one completes the trilogy with a survey of music for
motion pictures, including movie musicals. We then move from Holly wood to
Broadway to consider developments in the stage musical circa 1940, before head-
ing to Kansas City for an overview of big band swing and the elevation of jazz
singing to one of the United States’ characteristic art forms.FILM MUSIC
One of the most important cultural developments in the years between the world
wars was the rise of motion pictures as a popular medium of art and entertain-
ment. The fi nancial success of the movies lured actors, dancers, writers, graphic
artists, and musicians from all over the United States, as well as from Europe
and the rest of the Americas, to Holly wood, the center of the fi lm industry. The
movies offered musicians of many stripes work that paid well, and the special
demands of the medium created new kinds of cinematic music.THE FILM SCORE
From the beginning, silent movies were never truly silent. At fi rst, player pianos and
other mechanical instruments were used to cover the noise of the fi lm projector; no
attempt was made to coordinate the music to the fi lm. But live musicians, whether
a single pianist or organist or a complete theater orchestra, proved far more effec-
tive for providing a continuous musical accompaniment. A popular nineteenth-
century stage genre, the melodrama, had featured live actors, sparse dialogue,
and copious music to accompany the stage action; theater musicians simply trans-
ferred the repertory and techniques of matching music to action from melodrama
to “photo plays,” as the movies were sometimes called. In this way, movie palaces
created work for musicians much as live theater had done since colonial times.CHAPTER
15
FILM MUSIC, MUSICAL
COMEDY, AND SWING
BEFORE AND DURING
WORLD WAR II
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