The history of American music has been celebrated countless times. Most often artists pick a style or genre in order to focus their attention. The team behind The Great American Songbook, however, approach the entire development of American music in the Twentieth Century leading up to (and culminating in) the invention of rock and roll. This is a huge task and, armed with a nearly three-hour running time, they do succeed in touching on many musical directions.

Hosted by co-producer Michael Feinstein, The Great American Songbook does a nice job of summarizing the roots of American music: African slave chants, Eastern European theater, Celtic melodies, and so on. Many of these styles combined to create new musical directions and Feinstein helps track the paths. He also draws the connections between disparate styles, like the profound influence of jazz on classical composer George Gershwin. There are also plenty of interesting tidbits, like Scott Joplin's request that his ground-breaking ragtime tunes not be played "too fast" or the incredible number of famous songs (like "Camptown Races") that basically started out in racist minstrel shows.

Feinstein has obviously spent a lifetime obsessing over the details that make the American songbook so incredible. He lauds Fats Waller for his wit, Gershwin for his invention, Cole Porter for his suave compositions. The film consists mostly of archival footage, which is a good thing. One can never tire of Paul Robeson's deeply moving performance in Showboat or Lena Horne's stunning phrasing in "Stormy Weather." Footage of a performance of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" (sadly truncated like nearly all the film's pieces) not only contains a definitive rendition but ends with a mind-blowing overhead show that would put the Library of Congress scene in All the President's Men to shame.

The Great American Songbook is not perfect. While attempting to cover many styles it does spend more time on theatrical music than on the blues, a more primal but, I think, far more vital style. And some musicians (Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong) deserve far more coverage than they're granted. Still, for fans of the history of American music, The Great American Songbook is a clip-filled reminder of the beauty and complexity of a musical universe that developed, much like the rest of the country, astonishingly quickly.

VIDEO:
The full-frame video is perfectly acceptable. The vast majority of the film consists of archival footage, some from the early days of the medium. Much of it is in black and white and most of it looks surprisingly good.

AUDIO:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is also fine. Again, much of the source material comes from a much earlier time and doesn't have the sort of clarity of modern recording techniques. But the material is well mixed here and mostly sounds fine.

EXTRAS:
A commentary track is available from host/executive producer Michael Feinstein. It's not a full length commentary, however. with a little icon appearing on screen to cue the viewer on to the next set of comments. Feinstein goes into a little detail on the research and work that went into the lengthy piece but mostly talks about his own feelings about the music. He also laments the costly nature of licensing classic film clips. With access to the MGM and Warner's vaults, however, Feinstein sounds pretty pleased.

A short film called A New Romance Of Celluloid: We Must Have Music is also included. The opening lines of this quirky performance piece (sung by Judy Garland) pretty much say it all: "We must have music!/ Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief!/ Must have music!/ Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief!" It's basically a musical infomercial for old-time movie tunes. A fun addition to the DVD.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
The Great American Songbook is solid viewing. Feinstein isn't the smoothest host, but it's the content that matter and from Judy Garland to Fred Astaire to Jimmy Cagney, there's no arguing with this bunch.