A rich melancholy pervades the pages of Ohl's extensive biography of Broadway's first female composer. For those fans of George Gershwin, Kay Swift's name is a popular one - she was his personal secretary / paramour and it's likely they might have married if he hadn't died of a brain tumor in 1937. But Kay Swift was also a multi-talented composer, lyricist and author who has the distinction of being the first female composer to have a musical comedy ("Fine and Dandy") on the Great White Way.
Ms. Ohl's book is part of a relatively recent movement to honor Kay Swift's accomplishments, which are as numerous as they are unknown to the general public. P.S. Classics, in collaboration with the Kay Swift Trust, recently resurrected "Fine and Dandy" in a sparkling recording and Swift's granddaughter's are reportedly working on reissuing her semi-autobiographical novel Who Could Ask For Anything More?. In her preface, Ms. Ohl's clearly implies she hopes to continue this trend my taking Kay Swift out of George Gershwin's shadow - yet despite her best efforts, his impact on her life continues to bleed through.
Swift's life during the Gershwin years has a bittersweet tang: he clearly came between her and her husband, James Warburg (who also served as her lyricist, writing under the name Paul James). This led to their divorce, but Gershwin and Swift still remained apart until Gershwin's sudden death. It's easy to blame Gershwin's philandering ways for this, although it also seems possible that Swift herself might have become marriage-shy following the divorce. Whatever the reason, the two parted for a year so Gershwin could go to Hollywood and write music for Shall We Dance - a trip from which he never returned.
The rest of her life is tinged with minor successes (a bestselling novel, some successful compositions) and major disasters (failed projects, failed marriages). Swift continued to work until Alzheimer's struck her in her ninth decade and her determination is certainly an inspiration. But as this biogrpahy progresses, it becomes all too clear that the Gershwin years was the moment when the road took a different turn. This is not to imply that Swift's life would have been "better" if Gershwin had lived - it's possible she would have gone down in history as "Mrs. Gershwin". However, it is clear that Gershwin's death impacted Swift enormously. She married two years after his death and moved to Oregon, where she wrote Who Could Ask for Anything More? - a book whose title is stolen from a Gershwin song. Throughout her life she continued to return to Gershwin's ghost, helping biographers and historians commemorate him and his music.
As far as biographies go, Ms. Ohl's book is smartly written, exhaustive without ever being dull. A musician herself, she offers some nice analysis of Swift's music, thus making this book a biography both of Swift herself and of her work. If it doesn't quite manage to bring Swift out of Gershwin's shadow, it does succeed in provoking interest in her great volume of work. Swift may not be a household name, but some of her songs have become standards: You Tube is filled with people singing "Nobody Breaks My Heart" (from "Fine and Dandy") and many celebrities (Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Streisand) all included "Can't We Be Friends" (1929) in their repertoire. Clearly, whatever the interpretation of her life, Swift remains an inspirational figure who has a definite place in the canon of American musical theatre.
Read her obituary here.
There is a book coming out this summer by her granddaughter: THE MEMORY OF ALL THAT: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities.
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