Jerome Kern

One of the names most frequently invoked in discussions of the Great American Songbook, New York City-born Jerome Kern was a songwriter whose compositions of the 1920s-'40s became pop standards. As a composer for both theater and films, Kern crafted tunes that were sung by everyone from Fred Astaire to Paul Robeson and continued to be performed by subsequent generations of pop/jazz vocalists. Some of his best-known works include “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” “Ol' Man River,” and “All The Things You Are.”