Fran Landesman
Encyclopedia
Fran Landesman was an American
lyricist
and poet
.
, her father was a dress manufacturer, her mother was a journalist. Her brother Sam Deitsch went on to open and run bars in St Louis before establishing, with partner Ed Moose, The Washington Square Bar and Grill
in San Francisco.
She attended private schools, and later Temple University
and the Fashion Institute of Technology
, in whose fashion industry she initially worked. While in New York she met writer Jay Landesman
, the publisher of the short-lived Neurotica magazine, whom she married on July 15, 1950. They had two sons, Cosmo Landesman
and Miles Davis Landesman. Producer Rocco Landesman
is their nephew.
, his home town, where he and his brother Fred started the Crystal Palace nightclub. This was a successful venture, attracting big-name acts as well as producing avant-garde
theatre.
Fran Landesman's experiences sitting in the bar of the Crystal Palace, listening to musicians and audiences, led her to begin writing song lyrics in 1952. One of her best-known is "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most
", her exploration of T. S. Eliot
's "April is the cruelest month..." The Palace's pianist Tommy Wolf set her lyrics to music, and the song became a hit, leading to more Landesman–Wolf collaborations. He wrote the melodies for the songs for The Nervous Set, a musical with a book by Jay Landesman, which had a brief run on Broadway
, which featured "Spring" and "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men". Molly Darling, a musical by Jay Landesman and Martin Quigley, was produced by the St. Louis MUNY Opera
. She wrote the lyrics for A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren
.
In 1960, she began composing with singer/pianist/composer Bob Dorough
who had been brought to St. Louis by Tommy Wolf to play the lead in A Walk on the Wild Side. Their song "Nothing Like You" was recorded by Miles Davis
and included on his 1967 album Sorcerer. "Small Day Tomorrow" has been recorded by many singers and was the title of Dorough's 2007 CD which featured 12 songs with Landesman lyrics.
In 1964 the Landesmans moved to London
, where she wrote lyrics for a number of well-known musicians (with an emphasis on jazz
) such as Pat Smythe
, Georgie Fame
, Tom Springfield
, Richard Rodney Bennett
and Dudley Moore
. She continued to write with composers in the USA, most notably John Simon
and Roy Kral
. She wrote lyrics for another of her husband's musicals, Dearest Dracula, produced at the Dublin Theatre Festival
in 1965.
In the 1970s, Fran Landesman began writing and publishing poetry, for which she became better known, in the UK, than for her lyrics (though there was, of course, much overlap between the two). She published several volumes of poetry, as well as performing pieces at festivals and on BBC Radio.
In 1994 she met British composer Simon Wallace
with whom she collaborated for the rest of her life writing some 300 songs. Theatre shows based on Landesman/Wallace songs include There's Something Irresistible in Down (1996) produced at the Young Vic by members of the Royal Shakespeare Company
, Forbidden Games (1997) at the Ustinov Theatre Bath, the Pleasance Theatre Edinburgh and the Gdansk Shakespeare Festival
and Queen of the Bohemian Dream (2007) produced at the Source Theatre in Washington D.C. The Decline of the Middle West (1995) at The Supper Club in Manhattan featured Landesman's lyrics. In 1996 the BBC
received a number of complaints when Fran Landesman appeared on Desert Island Discs
and requested a supply of cannabis seeds
as her luxury item.
In 1999 Landesman donated her papers to the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where they are held in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. In 2006, Circumstantial Productions published a new collection of her lyrics and poems, Small Day Tomorrow, edited by Richard Connolly.
In the last 10 years of her life she performed more frequently, reciting her poetry, singing her songs and occasionally talking about her life and work. In 2003 she appeared in New York at Joe's Pub
with Jackie Cain
and Bob Dorough
and in October 2008 returned to St Louis to do a one woman show at the Gaslight Theatre. Throughout 2010 and 2011 she made bi-monthly appearances at RADA
for Farrago poetry and every six months hosted a lunchtime concert at The 606 Club
in London. In May 2010 the South Bank Centre
presented 'A Night Out with Fran Landesman' at the Purcell Room
and in April 2011 the Leicester Square Theatre presented 'An Evening with Fran Landesman' as part of the Art of Song Festival. Her last appearance was at RADA on July 21, 2011, two days before her death at the age of 83.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
and poet
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
.
Early life
Born Frances Deitsch in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, her father was a dress manufacturer, her mother was a journalist. Her brother Sam Deitsch went on to open and run bars in St Louis before establishing, with partner Ed Moose, The Washington Square Bar and Grill
Washington Square Bar and Grill
The Washington Square Bar and Grill is a landmark restaurant adjoining Washington Square in San Francisco, California's North Beach neighborhood...
in San Francisco.
She attended private schools, and later Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
and the Fashion Institute of Technology
Fashion Institute of Technology
The Fashion Institute of Technology, generally known as FIT, is a State University of New York college of art, business, design, and technology connected to the fashion industry, with an urban campus located on West 27th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of...
, in whose fashion industry she initially worked. While in New York she met writer Jay Landesman
Jay Landesman
Irving Ned Landesman was an American publisher, nightclub proprietor and writer long resident in London.-With the Beats:...
, the publisher of the short-lived Neurotica magazine, whom she married on July 15, 1950. They had two sons, Cosmo Landesman
Cosmo Landesman
Cosmo Landesman is a journalist and editor and son of Jay and Fran Landesman. With his then wife Julie Burchill, he set up the magazine The Modern Review. The magazine eventually folded, and Burchill left him for Charlotte Raven, one of the magazine's female interns.After the experience Landesman...
and Miles Davis Landesman. Producer Rocco Landesman
Rocco Landesman
Rocco Landesman has been a long-time Broadway theatre producer. In August 2009 he became chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts...
is their nephew.
Lyricist
She and her husband moved to St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, his home town, where he and his brother Fred started the Crystal Palace nightclub. This was a successful venture, attracting big-name acts as well as producing avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
theatre.
Fran Landesman's experiences sitting in the bar of the Crystal Palace, listening to musicians and audiences, led her to begin writing song lyrics in 1952. One of her best-known is "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most
Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most
"Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" is a popular song with lyrics by Fran Landesman, set to music by Tommy Wolf.-Notable recordings:*June Christy - The Song Is June! *Chris Connor - Double Exposure with Maynard Ferguson...
", her exploration of T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's "April is the cruelest month..." The Palace's pianist Tommy Wolf set her lyrics to music, and the song became a hit, leading to more Landesman–Wolf collaborations. He wrote the melodies for the songs for The Nervous Set, a musical with a book by Jay Landesman, which had a brief run on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, which featured "Spring" and "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men". Molly Darling, a musical by Jay Landesman and Martin Quigley, was produced by the St. Louis MUNY Opera
The Muny
The Muny, short for The Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis, is an outdoor musical theatre, located in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri...
. She wrote the lyrics for A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren was an American writer.-Early life:Algren was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Goldie and Gerson Abraham. At the age of three he moved with his parents to Chicago, Illinois where they lived in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side...
.
In 1960, she began composing with singer/pianist/composer Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough is an American bebop and cool jazz pianist, composer and vocalese singer.He worked with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, and his adventurous style was an influence on Mose Allison, among other singers...
who had been brought to St. Louis by Tommy Wolf to play the lead in A Walk on the Wild Side. Their song "Nothing Like You" was recorded by Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
and included on his 1967 album Sorcerer. "Small Day Tomorrow" has been recorded by many singers and was the title of Dorough's 2007 CD which featured 12 songs with Landesman lyrics.
In 1964 the Landesmans moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where she wrote lyrics for a number of well-known musicians (with an emphasis on jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
) such as Pat Smythe
Pat Smythe
Patricia Rosemary Smythe , most commonly known as Pat Smythe, was one of Britain's premier female showjumpers. She later married in 1960 after the Summer Olympics of the year to childhood friend Sam Koechlin and became Patricia Koechlin-Smythe...
, Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame is a British rhythm and blues and jazz singer and keyboard player. The one-time rock and roll tour musician, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still a popular performer, often working with contemporaries such as Van Morrison and Bill Wyman.-Early life:Fame took piano lessons from the...
, Tom Springfield
Tom Springfield
Tom Springfield is the brother of Dusty Springfield and an important figure in the 1960s folk and pop music scene...
, Richard Rodney Bennett
Richard Rodney Bennett
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE is an English composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works...
and Dudley Moore
Dudley Moore
Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...
. She continued to write with composers in the USA, most notably John Simon
John Simon (record producer)
John Simon is an American musician, record producer, and composer. He is best known for his work with The Band as producer and musician on Music from Big Pink and The Band.-Biography:...
and Roy Kral
Roy Kral
Roy Kral was an American jazz pianist and vocalist best known for his partnership with his wife Jackie Cain as the team Jackie and Roy. He was the brother of the singer Irene Kral....
. She wrote lyrics for another of her husband's musicals, Dearest Dracula, produced at the Dublin Theatre Festival
Dublin Theatre Festival
The Dublin Theatre Festival is Europe's oldest specialized theatre festival. It was founded by theatre impresario Brendan Smith in 1957 and has, with the exception of two years, produced a season of international and Irish theatre each autumn. It is one of a number of key post-World War II events...
in 1965.
In the 1970s, Fran Landesman began writing and publishing poetry, for which she became better known, in the UK, than for her lyrics (though there was, of course, much overlap between the two). She published several volumes of poetry, as well as performing pieces at festivals and on BBC Radio.
In 1994 she met British composer Simon Wallace
Simon Wallace
Simon Wallace is a British composer and pianist.Simon Wallace was born in Newport, South Wales. He studied music at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and University College, Oxford, where he ran the Oxford University Jazz Club and played with The Oxcentrics a Dixieland jazz band...
with whom she collaborated for the rest of her life writing some 300 songs. Theatre shows based on Landesman/Wallace songs include There's Something Irresistible in Down (1996) produced at the Young Vic by members of the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
, Forbidden Games (1997) at the Ustinov Theatre Bath, the Pleasance Theatre Edinburgh and the Gdansk Shakespeare Festival
Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival
Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival is an international theatre festival devoted to the idea of the Elizabethan theatre, and especially to the works of William Shakespeare. The event was first organized in 1993, on the initiative of Theatrum Gedanense Foundation, which had been created by prof. Jerzy Limon...
and Queen of the Bohemian Dream (2007) produced at the Source Theatre in Washington D.C. The Decline of the Middle West (1995) at The Supper Club in Manhattan featured Landesman's lyrics. In 1996 the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
received a number of complaints when Fran Landesman appeared on Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
and requested a supply of cannabis seeds
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
as her luxury item.
In 1999 Landesman donated her papers to the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where they are held in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. In 2006, Circumstantial Productions published a new collection of her lyrics and poems, Small Day Tomorrow, edited by Richard Connolly.
In the last 10 years of her life she performed more frequently, reciting her poetry, singing her songs and occasionally talking about her life and work. In 2003 she appeared in New York at Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub at Public Theater is a nightclub that hosts live performances regularly. The venue, which is a non-profit operation, is located at 425 Lafayette Street near Astor Place in Manhattan, New York City...
with Jackie Cain
Jackie Cain
Jackie Cain is an American jazz vocalist best known for her partnership with her husband Roy Kral as the team Jackie and Roy.-Selected discography:* So Many Stars -Literature:...
and Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough
Bob Dorough is an American bebop and cool jazz pianist, composer and vocalese singer.He worked with Miles Davis and Allen Ginsberg, and his adventurous style was an influence on Mose Allison, among other singers...
and in October 2008 returned to St Louis to do a one woman show at the Gaslight Theatre. Throughout 2010 and 2011 she made bi-monthly appearances at RADA
Rada
Rada is the term for "council" or "assembly"borrowed by Polish from the Low Franconian "Rad" and later passed into the Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian languages....
for Farrago poetry and every six months hosted a lunchtime concert at The 606 Club
606 Club
The 606 Club is a jazz club in Chelsea, London, owned and run by musician Steve Rubie since 1976. The club was originally at 606 King's Road, but moved to 90 Lots Road in 1987. It is currently licensed for 165 people. One, or sometimes two, jazz events are held every day, making it one of the...
in London. In May 2010 the South Bank Centre
South Bank Centre
Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, UK, on the South Bank of the River Thames between County Hall and Waterloo Bridge. It comprises three main buildings , and is Europe’s largest centre for the arts. It attracts more than three million visitors annually...
presented 'A Night Out with Fran Landesman' at the Purcell Room
Purcell Room
The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats....
and in April 2011 the Leicester Square Theatre presented 'An Evening with Fran Landesman' as part of the Art of Song Festival. Her last appearance was at RADA on July 21, 2011, two days before her death at the age of 83.
External links
- University of Missouri-St Louis — biographical introduction
- Fran's Official Web Site
- "Biography for Fran Landesman", Women of the Beat
- Frances Dietsch Landesman obituary, St. Louis Beacon (July 23, 2011)
- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/arts/music/fran-landesman-lyricist-with-a-bittersweet-edge-dies-at-83.html, "New York Times obituary 1st August 2011