CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Standard Time with Michael Feinstein

Zankel Hall
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Michael Feinstein, Artistic Director

With Special Guests:
Lucie Arnaz
Capathia Jenkins

With Pianists:
Ron Abel
Andy Ezrin

Sponsored by Mizuho Securities USA Inc.

Program Notes:

JOHNNY MERCER 1909–1976

It is almost impossible to get through an entire day without hearing at least one Johnny Mercer song on records, tapes, or CDs, on the radio or television, in movie houses, theaters, or cabarets all over the world.

Five decades of great American songs with America’s greatest composers, including Richard Whiting, Harry Warren, Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Arlen, Arthur Schwartz, Jerome Kern, Duke Ellington, David Raksin, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, John Williams, Marvin Hamlisch, and André Previn.

From the lighthearted “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” and “Jeepers Creepers” to the romantic “Laura,” “Dream,” and “I Remember You”; from the big band “And the Angels Sing” to the dramatic “Blues in the Night,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and “One For My Baby”; from the sassy “Satin Doll” and “Tangerine,” to the cinematic “Hooray for Hollywood” and “On the Atchinson, Topeka and the Santa Fe”; and, of course, the timeless standards of “Black Magic,” “Glow Worm,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” and “Moon River.”

On top of that,
- he wrote songs for 90 motion pictures.
- he won four Academy Awards and was nominated 19 times.
- he wrote six Broadway shows, including St. Louis Woman and Li'l Abner.
- he was a top radio personality and recording artist.
- he was the founder and president of Capitol Records.
- he discovered and nurtured the talent of artists like Margaret Whiting, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee,
Frank Sinatra, and Nat King Cole.
- he created the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Johnny Mercer was a true son of the South. His roots and his heart were firmly placed in Savannah, Georgia, an eccentric and unique world unto itself that has barely changed to this day. His love affair with music didn’t come from the glitter of Broadway or Hollywood, but as a country boy growing up near a small park, where on Sundays he went to listen in wonder to a local band play Irving Berlin.

His lyrics came naturally from the colorful way the people around him talked: you gotta “Accentuate the Positive;” “Fools Rush In;” “Where Angels Fear to Tread;” “Any Place to Hang My Hat is Home;” you’re just “Too Marvelous for Words.” And then there were the sounds he heard: the clickety-clack of the railroad track, the wind whistling through the Spanish moss, and the rain-like silver slivers racing along the horizon … “Now the rain’s a-fallin’, hear the train a-callin’ ‘Whoo-ee!’”

Johnny Mercer’s poetic genius continues to reflect the romantic yearnings, the wit, the energy, and the personality that is our American dream.