Jean Schwartz was a songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

.

Schwartz was born in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

. His family moved to New York City

New 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...

 when he was 13 years old. He took various music related jobs including demonstrating and selling sheet music

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

 in department stores before being hired full time by the Shapiro-Bernstein Publishing House of Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley

Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...

 as a staff pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 and song-plugger. He published his first composition (a Cakewalk

Cakewalk

The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...

) in 1899. He became known as an accomplished lyricist, although he also continued writing music.

In 1901 he started working with William Jerome

William Jerome

William Jerome was an American songwriter, born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York of Irish immigrant parents, Mary Donnellan and Patrick Flannery...

. They collaborated on many songs which were used in 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...

 shows, including "Mr. Dooley," sung by the title character in The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1902 stage play)

The Wizard of Oz was a 1902 musical extravaganza based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, which was originally published in 1900...

, as well as the Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeld Follies

The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....

. Their biggest hit together was the 1910 song "Chinatown, My Chinatown

Chinatown, My Chinatown

"Chinatown, My Chinatown" is a popular song written by William Jerome and Jean Schwartz in 1910.Jerome and Schwartz incorporated Chinese musical forms into Western music for the melody...

", still popular with Dixieland

Dixieland

Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...

 bands. Schwartz and Jerome stopped working together in 1913.

Schwartz continued working on show tunes through 1937. He died in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

.

Songwriters on parade

In the late 1930s Schwartz and several of his fellow hitmakers formed a revue called "Songwriters on Parade

Songwriters On Parade

Songwriters on Parade was a musical Vaudeville revue which featured hit songwriters of the day. It was considered one of the last Vaudevillian forays of this type...

", performing all across the Eastern seaboard on the Loew's and Keith

Keith

Keith may refer to:People*Keith *Keith * Baron Keith, line of Scottish barons in the late 18th century* Clan Keith, Scottish clan associated with lands in northeastern and northwestern Scotland...

 circuits.

External links