American Music Review Formerly the Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter H. Wiley Hitchcock for Studies in American Music Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York
Volume XXXVI I I	No. 1 Fall 2008
Inside This Issue: Inside This Issue “Her Whimsy and Originality Really Amount to Genius”: New Biographical Research on Johanna Beyer by Amy C. Beal Interview with Ursula Oppens by Jason Eckardt Marketing Musard: Bernard Ullman at the Academy of Music by Bethany Goldberg Ives Reimagined, review by Christopher Bruhn	Remembering Jim Maher by Joshua Berrett James T. Maher in the 1960s James T. Maher passed away in New York City on 18 July 2007. As an outstanding cultural historian of jazz and American popular music of the first half of the twentieth century, he had very few equals, if any, in comprehending the complex nexus between the two. His rubbing shoulders with many of its movers and shakers added an immeasurable richness to his work—always a model of balanced critical assessment. His depth of knowledge, coupled with a generosity of spirit, not to mention his genuinely nurturing gifts, made him a cherished mentor to American music scholars, both past and present, myself included. I consider myself blessed to have developed a warm and transparent relationship with Maher, particularly during the final decade or so of his life. And very much part of the mix was Barbara, his wonderful, loving wife. We spoke on the phone rather often and there was always an open invitation to stop by the apartment on West 71^st Street. Once there, he and I would chew the fat, and when, in his last years, he felt equal to the challenge, we would walk around the block to his favorite neighborhood basement bar. We would freely exchange insights on a broad range of topics, and he was forever generous in allowing me to borrow his unpublished manuscripts, some of which had been aborted for various reasons. Included were his essay on early radio music, his biography of virtual musical unknown Art Landry, as well as obscure news clippings. Happily a number of details from these pieces came to be included in my book, Louis Armstrong and Paul Whiteman: Two Kings of Jazz (Yale University Press, 2004). For most readers here, Maher’s name will probably be associated with a monumental 536-page study, replete with some three thousand five hundred measures of copyrighted music, titled American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, and first published by Oxford University Press in 1972. Characterized by Gunther Schuller as “a lovingly insightful study,” it also won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award and was nominated for a National Book Award. Alec Wilder is identified as the book’s author, while Maher is credited with having served as editor and providing an introduction. But the truth of the matter is more apparent as one reads Wilder’s own generous acknowledgment, more like a dedication, coming after the Table of Contents: “To James T. Maher for his inestimable contribution to this book, for his truly phenomenal knowledge and research, his impeccable collation of thousands of facts, his endless patience, his tolerance of my eccentric methods of work, his unfailing good humor, his guidance and encouragement. Also for his superb editing. If ever the phrase ‘but for whom this book would never have been written’ were apt, it is so in this instance.” A native of Cleveland, Jim Maher was born on 27 January 1917—a birthday, he liked to remind people, that he shared with Mozart. Maher was an amateur in the best sense of the word, earning his livelihood in journalism as well as public relations, working at various points for Texaco and Aramco in the Middle East. But his passion for jazz and popular music was unbounded, dating back to his boyhood. His professional career as journalist began in 1934, when he wrote on sports for the Plain Dealer. While attending Ohio State University, he met Benny Goodman, and their relationship blossomed over the years, with Maher authoring a revelatory set of liner notes for such classic albums as Goodman’s The Sound of Music. No less distinguished were his contributions to the celebrated RCA Vintage Series, not to mention albums by Oscar Peterson collaborating with Nelson Riddle, Stan Getz performing with João Gilberto, and more. Jim Maher was one of the more eloquent talking heads on Ken Burns’s documentary Jazz and makes several contributions to the companion book by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). Published the same year was The Oxford Companion to Jazz (Oxford University Press, 2000), edited by Bill Kirchner, which includes an essay by Maher and Jeffrey Sultanof entitled “Pre-Swing Era Big Bands and Jazz Composing and Arranging.” It offers a superb overview of the early American dance band and its precedents stretching all the way back to the Congress of Vienna (1812-22). It was then that Joseph Lanner established the first celebrity dance orchestra, creating in the process an historic “book” of his arrangements. And in its early American incarnation, the dance band, we learn, was transformed by Art Hickman in San Francisco, when he introduced two saxophones in 1919. This was, in effect, a proto-reed section, the seed of the later four-part section and a vital element in the success of band leaders like Paul Whiteman, who were soon to follow. Perhaps most far-reaching was Maher’s close friendship with Marshall Stearns. Their taped interview with Charlie Parker, one of the very few ever undertaken, is especially valuable. Some time later Maher came to write “An Appreciation,” part of the introduction to the seminal work Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (Macmillan, 1968), co-authored by Marshall and Jean Stearns. But the richest legacy of all, brought about partly at Maher’s urging, was Stearns’s decision to bequeath his magnificent collection to Rutgers University in Newark. It became a vital part of what was soon to grow into the internationally recognized Institute of Jazz Studies. —Joshua Berrett Mercy College ISAM home Who we are Contact us ISAM Conferences and Lectures Monographs ISAM Web Documents Newsletters Links Copyright © 2005 Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College. All Rights Reserved. Site designed by J. Graeme Fullerton & maintained by Carl Clements, Managing Editor