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Jerome Kern 

Herewith the second in a trio of Astaire- Rogers film favourites. Swing Time which opened at London's then Regal, Marble Arch (now Odeon) on October 23 1936; film had bowed at New York's Radio City Hall end of August, despite a walloping from some of New York's critics. They did not deter, most of the populace surrounded the massive cinema- theatre; cops were called in for crown control.

Jerome Kern was criticised for his 'old hat' music, said not to be in tune with swing. How short-sighted some of us can be, look at the old timer today, we are still listening to a fabled, fabulous score. There's a touch of Kern's operetta style in gorgeous,    blossoming   Waltz   in Swingtime, bursting right into the swing era. Listen to the Henry Hall BBC Dance Orchestra    version; the brilliant Melachrino Strings; Geraldo does it in a medley featuring singer Cyril Grantham.

Find all the Swing Time songs on the album of the same name one of several devoted    to    the    Astaire-Rogers phenomenon, Fred too on many of his albums, including the Academy Award winner which he croons to Ginger as she shampoos her hair: it's the tremendous The Way You Look Tonight. Surely this must be included in the all-time list of favourite ballads; it has everything, warmth, tender loving care, words which sum up Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields to perfection.

That is not all, how about the other long player, long staying now standard song: A Fine Romance, truly outstanding music and lyric that just cannot be faulted. Check song catalogues; find it as a terrific duet for Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, hear it too from the likes of Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, Crosby with his then wife,  Dixie Lee, Benny Goodman, Ted Heath, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, and darling Marilyn Monroe. The list is endless, we British really went to town: Ambrose; Geraldo; Henry Hall, Harry Roy; Jay Wilbur just to skim the surface.

No wonder crowds flocked and no wonder these years later they are still buying the DVD and asking for the many numbers to be played. Another swinger in the Swing Time score Pick Yourself Up counts up to no less than 20 versions including Fred Astaire Ray Anthony, Led Brown, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Geraldo, Jack Payne and Harry Roy, and for good measure, Ted Heath. Billy May, Grappelly, Shearing and from a different angle: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Fred Astaire must have had tongue-in- cheek, or rather lyricist Dorothy Fields did explaining to all he was Never Gonna Dance. In 1936 George Melachrino sang it with Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, as did Billy Scott Coomber with Jack Payne, Carroll Gibbons did it solo with cabaret star, Hildergarde. Fred himself blacked up - a show business expression for black-face widely used at the time, his one and only time in a long, successful career, and as we see not forgotten today. Kern's black- face parody is in turn a tribute to Bonjangles of Harlem. 

Swing Time features a bright bunch of no less than eight Jerome Kern -Dorothy Fields songs, still alluring engaging and catchy, as I used to say in radio time to "play them again".   A vast wealth of music and song I could not live without. Next Astaire-Rogers recall to et aside Top Hat (GLP August 2005) will hopefully be May 2007 for the Gershwin extravaganza Shall We Dance?