The Great American Composers: Harold Arlen

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The Harold Arlen entry in Columbia House's series of two-disc anthologies of songs by the Great American Composers is one of its weaker offerings. Though ranging from 1932 to 1967, the 42 recordings are mostly '50s and '60s re-creations of songs dating from the '30s and '40s. Eleven are roughly contemporary to the songs' copyrights, though, even if they are not the hit versions, and some of the choices are acute, notably Ethel Waters' 1933 recording of 'Stormy Weather' and two selections from St. Louis Woman sung by the show's star, Pearl Bailey. Four of the selections are sung by the composer himself, and others are by such excellent interpreters as Tony Bennett, Dinah Shore, and Sarah Vaughan. But many of the choices are hard to credit -- for example, opera singer Eileen Farrell turns up five times, which for a blues- and jazz-influenced songwriter like Arlen is absurd -- and it's hard to believe that nowhere in the vast Columbia archives could the compilers find an acceptable recording of 'It's Only a Paper Moon.' Judy Garland, a premier Arlen interpreter, recorded 'The Man That Got Away' for Columbia in 1954, but it's not here, and neither is any other version of that song. 'Blues In the Night,' also missing entirely, was recorded by Rosemary Clooney on Columbia in 1952 and was a hit. One can surmise that Barbra Streisand, who recorded many Arlen songs for Columbia, probably has a coupling restriction in her contract that prevents the use of her recordings on compilations; in any case, she's not heard here. But what about the others? As it is, this set is an incomplete curio rather than a comprehensive survey of a great songwriter's work by sympathetic interpreters, as it should -- and could -- have been.