1888–1989 · American Composer & Lyricist
Berlin wrote his own words and music — no collaborator, just one extraordinary mind shaping melody and lyric simultaneously. The result is a seamless unity of word and tone that singers feel in their bodies: the syllables land where the melody wants them, the emotion is built into the notes, and the songs feel like they arrived fully formed from some other, better world.
Irving Berlin was born Israel Beilin in Temun, Russia in 1888 and arrived in the United States as a young child, growing up in the tenements of the Lower East Side. He never learned to read music — he composed by ear, playing always in F# major on a specially designed transposing piano — yet he produced over 1,500 songs across a career of astonishing longevity, dying in 1989 at the age of 101. From Tin Pan Alley through Broadway, Hollywood, and beyond, Berlin's songs shaped the soundtrack of American life for nearly a century.
This workshop focuses on Berlin's less-performed but deeply rewarding material for jazz singers. How Deep Is the Ocean is one of his greatest ballads — a question that grows more anguished with every verse. Change Partners carries a bittersweet waltz-time world-weariness. Let's Face the Music and Dance, The Best Thing for You, and Steppin' Out with My Baby are each superb vehicles for swinging delivery. What'll I Do and Say It Isn't So round out the collection with some of his most purely beautiful melodic writing.
Berlin's songs work because they are direct — he didn't hide behind clever wordplay or sophisticated harmonic tricks. The emotion is right on the surface, and the singer's job is simply to deliver it honestly. That simplicity is harder than it looks, and more rewarding when achieved.
Each song includes lead sheet and lyric sheet in both a men's and women's key, plus a practice backing track. In addition, there are YouTube links to a variety of artist renditions to inspire you.