The Ballad of John Latouche: An American Lyricist's Life and Work

Born into a poor Virginian family, John Treville Latouche (1914-56), in his short life, made a profound mark on America's musical theater as a lyricist, book writer, and librettist. The wit and skill of his lyrics elicited comparisons with the likes of Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, and Cole Porter, but he had too, noted Stephen Sondheim, "a large vision of what musical theater could be," and he proved especially venturesome in helping to develop a lyric theater that innovatively combined music, word, dance, and costume and set design. Many of his pieces, even if not commonly known today, remain high points in the history of American musical theater."A great American genius" in the words of Duke Ellington, Latouche initially came to wide public attention in his early twenties with his cantata for soloist and chorus, Ballad for Americans (1939), with music by Earl Robinson-a work that swept the nation during the Second World War. Other milestones in his career included the all-black musical fable, Cabin in the Sky (1940), with Vernon Duke; an interracial updating of John Gay's classic, The Beggar's Opera, as Beggar's Holiday (1946), with Duke Ellington; two acclaimed Broadway operas with Jerome Moross: Ballet Ballads (1948) and The Golden Apple (1954); one of the most enduring operas in the American canon, The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956), with Douglas Moore; and the operetta Candide (1956), with Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman. Extremely versatile, he also wrote cabaret songs, participated in documentary and avant-garde film, translated poetry, adapted plays, and much else. Meanwhile, as one of Manhattan's most celebrated raconteurs and hosts, he developed a wide range of friends in the arts, including, to name only a few, Paul and Jane Bowles (whom he introduced to each other), Yul Brynner, John Cage, Jack Kerouac, Frederick Kiesler, Carson McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Dawn Powell, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Gore Vidal, and Tennessee Williams-a dazzling constellation of diverse artists working in sundry fields, all attracted to Latouche's brilliance and joie de vivre, not to mention his support for their work. This book draws widely on archival collections both at home and abroad, including Latouche's diaries and the papers of Bernstein, Ellington, Moore, Moross, and many others, to tell for the first time, the story of this fascinating man and his work.

Table of Contents:
Contents Introduction 1. John Latouche and His Family 2. The Young Writer 3. The Boy Wonder of Broadway 4. The Little Friends 5. Ballads for Americans 6. New Friends 7. Radio and Patriotic Work, 1940-1945 8. Cabin in the Sky 9. Banjo Eyes 10. The Lady Comes Across 11. To the Congo and Into the Navy 12. Rhapsody 13. Polonaise 14. Beggar's Holiday 15. Film Work 16. Ballet Ballads 17. More Fables 18. The Golden Apple 19. Touche's Salon 20. The Vamp 21. Candide 22. Late Work 23. The Ballad of Baby Doe 24. The Death and Legacy of a Renaissance Man

About the Author :
Howard Pollack is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Music at the University of Houston, where he has taught since 1987. He is the author of six books, including biographies of Walter Piston, John Alden Carpenter, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, and Marc Blitzstein. He has received three Deems Taylor Awards and an ARSC Award for Excellence for his publications as well as two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities among other grants and fellowships. Pollack's articles and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and encyclopedias. He also has lectured at colleges and arts organizations in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, England, Germany, Mexico, and across the United States, and has appeared in both German and American film documentaries and on such American radio shows as Morning Edition, All Things Considered, the Voice of America, and Fresh Air as well as on Australian, British, German, and New Zealand radio.

Review :
Praise for MARC BLITZSTEIN, also by Howard Pollack "A timely and invaluable study of a composer we need to know more about. I marvel at Howard Pollack's capacity--as with his biographies of Copland and Gershwin--to digest and synthesize a wealth of information, copiously gathered." --Joseph Horowitz, author of Classical Music in America: A History "Pollack treats us to an eventful and rewarding voyage of immersion in the life and work of an important American composer." --New Music Connoisseur "The fluidity of prose, moving between established fact and new interviews and critical ideas, is remarkable, making for a book that is rivaled only by Pollack's biography of Aaron Copland...A momentous achievement indeed...Highly recommended." --Choice "The story of an artistic genius who refused to sell out, and Pollack has made a powerful case for his rediscovery. With its extensive and insightful descriptions of the music, this biography ought to win for Blitzstein the wider recognition and appreciation he so clearly deserves after so many years of neglect." --New York Times "You'll need a bigger stocking for Howard Pollack's The Ballad of John Latouche: An American Lyricist's Life and Work, but it's worth it for this 500+-page deep dive into the story one of Broadway's least-known masters, whose oeuvre includes The Golden Apple, Candide and Cabin in the Sky and include at least two songbook standards, 'Lazy Afternoon' and 'Taking a Chance on Love.'" --Deadline "[John Latouche's] legacy has been clouded by the very versatility that once earned him admirers, said Howard Pollack, a professor of music at the University of Houston and author of the new biography 'The Ballad of John Latouche.' The book -- nearly 500 dense but rich pages -- is the first survey to fill in the gaps of Latouche's liquor-soaked life and career as a lyricist whose clever writing for Broadway and experimental theater prefigured Stephen Sondheim." -- NYTimes, Joshua Barone "Howard Pollack's 'The Ballad of John Latouche; An American Lyricist's Life and Work' proves that while the lyricist and librettist may be physically absent, his work, which includes the musicals 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'The Golden Apple,' and 'Candide' and the opera 'The Ballad of Baby Doe,' makes him present forever. In fact, by the time one has finished reading this massively detailed biography (far more complex than 'Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World,' Pollack's far from merely admirable study of Latouche's contemporary and collaborator), Rorem's 'three lives' estimation may seem a tad modest." --Gay City News "A thrilling and exhaustive new biography." --WOSU Public Media