All the things you are (1939)

The folks who live on the hill (1937)

“Not so hot for November,” observed the New York Times when Very Warm for May opened at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway in 1938. In fact, it closed before the end of January after no more than 59 performances – which was a short run for a show, their last, by the aristocrats of American musical theatre, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. Another irony asociated with Very Warm for May is that, although Kern disliked jazz, its most popular number “All the things you are” was widely adopterd as a jazz standard – not least by Charlie Parker who used to call it “YATAG” after his favourit line “You are the angel glow.”

The 1937 Hollywood movie High, Wide, and Handsome was not a great success either and would be forgotten but for as many as seven high-quality Kern-Hammerstein songs, including Can I forget you and The Folks that Live on the Hill – both of them sung in the film by Irene Dunne, the latter in a wedding dress (which is not, however, an essential item for an authentic interpretation).