It's been 10 years since the U.S. Postal Service issued a series of six stamps honoring classic Hollywood composers. In 1999, Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Franz Waxman were officially en-stamped.
That same year, the Post Office issued a series of stamps honoring classic songwriters: Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, the Gershwins (George was first featured on a stamp in 1973), Lerner & Loewe, Frank Loesser, and Meredith Willson.
These are part of the Legends of American Music series, launched in 1993 with Elvis Presley and ending in 1999. Honorees were mostly singers as diverse as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Bob Wills, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Ethel Waters, Nat King Cole, Ethel Merman, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Mahalia Jackson. The isn't a complete list, since we're straying somewhat from soundtracks, even though the music of these artists was used in films and often the artists performed in films.
1996 stamped several songwriters (Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields) and big band leaders (Count Basie, Benny Goodman, the Dorseys, Glenn Miller). Cole Porter had gotten his stamp back in 1991, Irving Berlin as recently as 2002.
1995 was a year several jazz artists were be-stamped, including Louis Armstrong, Eubie Blake, John Coltrane, Erroll Garner, James P. Johnson, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and Jelly Roll Morton. Armstrong was all over movies of course and some of the others contributed to soundtracks at some point in their career without having a film project as meaty as Duke Ellington's ANATOMY OF A MURDER. He got his stamp back in 1986. Scott Joplin's ragtime music was adapted by Marvin Hamlisch for THE STING; Joplin's stamp was 1983. (The earliest jazz artist on a stamp was W.C. Handy in 1969.)
Miles Davis (ASCENSEUR POUR L'ECHAFAUD/ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS/LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD), who died in 1991, wasn't eligible for the 1995 jazz series but would be eligible today.
1997 was the year for classical artists--opera singers, conductors, and four composers: Samuel Barber, Ferde Grofé, Charles Ives, and Louis M. Gottschalk.
Barber didn't compose for films, but we'd be lying if we didn't admit that a certain adagio has been used a hundred times in them, including trailers. On his Wikipedia page, Barber is quoted: "How awful that the artist has become nothing but the after-dinner mint of society." He might have added, "How awful that the composer has become a cliché of the temp track."
Grofé did compose for films. Wikipedia's entry on him even quotes the New York Times review praising his music for the film MINSTREL MAN (1944), a PRC epic directed by Joseph H. Lewis.
However, the most significant name on that list, filmwise, is Gottschalk, possibly the first composer for feature films. He co-founded L. Frank Baum's production company in 1914 and wrote, according to Wikipedia, the earliest known feature scores: THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ, THE MAGIC CLOAK OF OZ, HIS MAJESTY THE SCARECROW OF OZ, and THE LAST EGYPTIAN. Later he composed ORPHANS OF THE STORM, THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY and ROMOLA. It says "He composed a score for Charles Chaplin's A WOMAN OF PARIS in 1923, but Chaplin replaced it with a score of his own writing in 1976." Gee whillikers, thank goodness this man already has his stamp!
Also significant to fans of film music are two composers who got stamped in this millennium: Leonard Bernstein in 2001, and dear Henry Mancini in 2004.
On the Wikipedia page of stamped Americans, only six more names are designated simply as "composer," and five of them got their stamp in an American Composers series in 1940: Stephen Foster, Victor Herbert, Edward MacDowell, Ethelbert Nevin, and John Philip Sousa. All but Sousa died before the advent of the passing fad known as talkies, yet at least three contributed immeasurably to American films without writing for them. The other two are best known for songs about roses (Nevin's "Mighty Lak a Rose" and MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose") that crop up on rare occasions.
The sixth is Igor Stravinsky in 1982.
What do we notice about this list? One absence that wallops me between the eyes like a mackerel is Aaron Copland. I swear, I can almost remember what the stamp looks like--have I slipped into an alternate universe? But it seems to be true: no stamp for Aaron. This is not only a serious oversight in American musical philately but also for soundtrack enthusiasts.
It turns out he WAS on at least one stamp. The country of Grenada issued a set of 9 Classic Composers: Copland, Bartok, Puccini, Gershwin, Bernstein, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Cage, and Kurt Weill. That should remind Yanks that there is, of course, a world of stamps out there, and various countries basically generate revenue from stamps, so they must be open to suggestions. Still, how did Grenada get so hip? Consider the possibilities. Cage--a blank stamp? A stamp of random value? And Weill (who does have one or three soundtracks to his name) really needs one too.
The USPS doesn't seem to accept suggestions by email (this is the relevant page on their site), but I've found other sites that supposedly forward your suggestions. If you think Copland or someone else merits a stamp, remember that U.S. stamps basically honor Americans dead for at least 10 years, which means some of the illustrious names we lost this century won't be eligible yet--though perhaps Grenada or the Seychelles will be delighted to put out stamps for Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, David Raksin, or Vic Mizzy.
Because philately will get you anywhere. |
