Jean Schwartz (November 4, 1878 – November 30, 1956) was a Hungarian-born Jewish American composer and pianist. He is best known for his work writing the scores for more than 30 Broadway musicals, and for his creation of more than 1,000 popular songs with the lyricist William Jerome.[1][2] Schwartz and Jerome also performed together on the vaudeville stage in the United States; sometimes in collaboration with Maude Nugent, Jerome's wife, and the Dolly Sisters. Schwartz was married to Jenny Dolly from 1913 to 1921.
With Jerome, Schwartz created a large body of work for both Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, with the majority of their songs written between the years 1901 and 1910. Many of their popular songs were interpolated into Broadway musicals created by others during the 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s. The pair were also the primary creators of eight Broadway musicals, the most successful of which were Piff! Paff!! Pouf!!! (1904) and The Ham Tree (1905). Their most enduring song, "Chinatown, My Chinatown", was written in 1906, interpolated into their final musical together, Up and Down Broadway (1910), and became a jazz standard when a series of recording artists, including Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, made popular recordings of the work. Their collaborative output slowed significantly after 1910 and came to an end during World War I.
While Schwartz was mainly concerned with writing the music to his songs, he did on occasion work as a lyricist as well. He was a founding member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1914. Schwartz formed a prolific partnership with the lyricist and playwright Harold Atteridge with whom he created more than a dozen Broadway musicals. Many of these shows were also made with the composer Sigmund Romberg. The trio of Schwartz, Atteridge, and Romberg created five of The Passing Show musical revues together as well as the musicals Monte Cristo, Jr. (1919) and Innocent Eyes (1924). Schwartz also created several Broadway musicals in collaboration with the lyricist Alfred Bryan; sometimes in conjunction with Atteridge as musical book writer.
Schwartz collaborated with many other songwriters during his lengthy career. He wrote the 1918 popular standard "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody" with Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young. In 1930, he intentionally ended his career as a New York City based songwriter with the aptly named "Au Revoir Pleasant Dreams", a work which became the theme song for Ben Bernie and his orchestra. After this, he lived in retirement in Los Angeles and was mostly finished with music making. His final song of significance, the 1937 popular standard "Trust in Me", was written in collaboration with Milton Ager and Ned Wever. That song has been recorded by numerous artists, most recently by Beyonce for the 2008 film Cadillac Records. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
Jean Schwartz was born into a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary on November 4, 1878.[3] At the age of 13, he immigrated with his family to the United States and settled with them in New York City.[1] The family lived on the East Side,[4] and he studied the piano under his older sister, Rosa, who had trained as a pianist under Franz Liszt.[5]
After working for a time as an office boy at a cigar factory and as an attendant at a Turkish bath house, Schwartz obtained employment in the sheet music department of the Siegel-Cooper Company, where his job was to play songs on the piano for customers in order to sell the sheet music.[4] It was while working in this job that he published his first song, the ragtime piece "Dusky Dudes' Cakewalk", in 1899.[6] Other music jobs he held in his early years included working as a pianist with an orchestra at Coney Island and as a song-plugger for the Shapiro-Bernstein Publishing House of Tin Pan Alley.[5]
Schwartz became a citizen of the United States in 1902.[7] In 1914, he was one of the twelve founding members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.[2]
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Schwartz remained at the Siegel-Cooper Company until 1901 when he took a job as the on-stage pianist in John Stromberg's Broadway musical Hoity Toity at Weber & Fields Music Hall.[4] His energy and enthusiasm on stage attracted the attention of the show's librettist, William Jerome, and the two ended up becoming friends.[8] In the midst of Hoity Toity's run, the two men wrote their first song together, "Mr. Shakespeare Comes to Town", and the tune was added into that production under the pseudonym John Black. It was a popular hit with audiences.[4]
Schwartz went on to write more than 1,000 popular songs with Jerome; many of them written for or first performed on the Broadway stage.[2] The pair regularly contributed additional songs and other material to musicals primarily written by others. One of their early songs, "Mr. Dooley", was first performed in George Dance and Howard Talbot's musical A Chinese Honeymoon (1902), and was a popular enough hit that it was also included in the first musical version of The Wizard of Oz (1902). Most of their early songs were comedic works; including musical theatre songs written for the comedians George M. Cohan, Al Jolson, Eddie Foy, Harry Bulger, and Thomas Q. Seabrooke.[4][2] The pair then began to expand their repertoire into writing ballads, with an important early success being the song "Bedalia" written for Blanche Ring in Reginald De Koven and George V. Hobart's The Jersey Lily (1903). This song's sheet music sold more than three million copies.[9] The pair also contributed songs to the Ziegfeld Follies, among other shows.[10]
In 1903, Schwartz and Jerome wrote their first of eight musicals together where they were the primary authors, Mrs. Delaney of Newport.[11] This was followed by their biggest success as musical theatre writers, Piff! Paff!! Pouf!!!, in 1904.[4] The song "Radium Dance" from this show was inspired by scientist Marie Curie, and the musical was a big hit for its stars, Eddie Foy and Alice Fischer.[12] They scored another popular hit with the musical The Ham Tree, which was created for the vaudeville stars James McIntyre and Thomas Heath.[13] A tremendous success, the production toured for seven years and was later periodically revived by McIntyre and Heath.[14]
Schwartz and Jerome's other show from 1905, Lifting the Lid, was their first collaboration with the playwright John J. McNally.[15] McNally penned the books to several other Schwartz and Jerome Broadway musicals, including Fritz in Tammany Hall (1905),[16] Lola from Berlin (1907),[17] and In Hayti (1909).[18] Their final musical together, Up and Down Broadway (1910),[19] included their biggest hit as songwriters, "Chinatown, My Chinatown".[20][2] Originally written in 1906, this song was interpolated into the musical. This song, however, did not become a popular hit until it was recorded by the American Quartet and Billy Murray in late 1914 on their number one selling record.[21] It then became a jazz standard and was recorded by numerous artists over the next several decades; among them Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson.[22]
Schwartz and Jerome also wrote several popular songs not attached to musicals. Their 1901 comedic song "Rip Van Winkle Was a Lucky Man" was a hit for both African-American singer Sherman H. Dudley,[23] and Jerome's wife, Maude Nugent.[1] Their song "Dear Sing Sing" (1903) was a hit for Billy Murray who recorded the song multiple times.[24] Their comedic song "I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew" (1909) became a hit for several performers of the era; including Carter DeHaven and Eddie Morton.[25] Some of their other hit songs included "Since Sister Nell heard Paderewski Play" (1901), "I’m Unlucky" (1902) "Hamlet Was a Melancholy Dane" (1902), "Cordelia Malone" (1904), and the "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick’s Day" (1909), among many others.[26]
After 1910, Schwartz and Jerome's collaborative output significantly dropped as they began to increasingly pursue projects independent of one another;[27] and despite briefly operating their own publishing firm in the years leading up to World War I, their partnership came to an end during the war years.[28] However, songs the pair had written earlier in their career continued to be interpolated into musicals, and performed by recording artists after their partnership had ended.[29] The pair re-united briefly in 1921 with the song "Molly on a Trolley by Golly With You", which was published by M. Witmark & Sons.[27]
Schwartz and Jerome were also active as performers on the vaudeville stage together, and they sometimes worked in collaboration with Maude Nugent and the Dolly Sisters.[30] Jenny Dolly was Schwartz's first wife.[4]
In 1909, Schwartz began to work on musical theatre projects without Jerome, beginning with the Harry B. Smith musical The Silver Star, for which he was one of several credited primary composers.[31] He formed a partnership with the lyricist Harold Atteridge, with their first major work together being the 1913 musical The Honeymoon Express. The two men then went on to work for the Shubert family in The Passing Show musical revue series, joining the composer Sigmund Romberg to create The Passing Show of 1913.[32] The same creative trio was later re-united to create The Passing Show of 1918, The Passing Show of 1919, The Passing Show of 1923, The Passing Show of 1924, and the musicals Monte Cristo, Jr. (1919) and Innocent Eyes (1924).[33]
Schwartz joined playwright Anne Caldwell to create the 1914 Broadway musical When Claudia Smiles.[34] He was the composer for Shubert Gaieties of 1919 with Atteridge being one of several contributing writers to the show's book and Alfred Bryan as lyricist.[35] He collaborated with Bryan on another musical that year, Hello, Alexander (1919), which was a major re-working of The Ham Tree. This heavily revised work supplanted most of the earlier work by Jerome with new lyrics by Bryan and a new book by Edgar Smith.[36] The Schwartz and Bryan team followed this with The Midnight Rounders of 1920 and The Century Revue (1920).[37] Atteridge joined the creative team of Schwartz and Bryan for The Midnight Rounders of 1921,[38] and both Atteridge and Schwartz were part of a larger number of creatives behind The Mimic World (1921).[39]
Schwartz and Atteridge collaborated with Eddie Cantor to create the 1922 musical Make It Snappy.[40] The pair joined composer Al Goodman and playwright Harry Wagstaff Gribble to create Topics of 1923.[41] Schwartz and Atteridge re-united with Bryan for the musical A Night in Spain (1927).[42] Schwartz's final Broadway musical, Sunny Days (1928), was made with writers Clifford Grey and William Carey Duncan.[43]
In 1930, Schwartz ended his lengthy association with Tin Pan Alley and Broadway; publishing his last song written in New York, the aptly named "Au Revoir Pleasant Dreams", as an intentional finale to his career as a New York City songwriter and composer.[4] This song was written with lyricist Jack Meskill and was recorded by Ben Bernie and his orchestra. Bernie used the song as his theme song for his radio program.[28]
Schwartz then moved to Los Angeles, California where he mostly retired from songwriting.[28] He wrote one last hit song, "Trust in Me", in collaboration with Ned Wever and Milton Ager. This song was first popularized in separate recordings made in 1937 by Mildred Bailey and Wayne King. It has been recorded by numerous artists,[44] including Beyoncé in the 2008 film Cadillac Records.[45]
Schwartz married the actress, singer, and dancer Jenny Dolly of the Dolly Sisters in 1913. They divorced in 1921.[46] Jean Schwartz died in Sherman Oaks, California on November 30, 1956 at the age of 78.[2][28] He was survived by his second wife Sally Schwartz.[2] He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.[26]
