Harold Arlen was a musical prodigy who left school to work as a singer, pianist, arranger, composer and who, by his teens, had formed a jazz trio. He had his first Broadway hit, “Get Happy” (1930), with Ted Koehler. They went on to write for Cotton Club revues and film, turning out “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” (1931), “I Got A Right To Sing the Blues” (1932), “Stormy Weather” (1933), and “Let’s Fall in Love” and “Ill Wind” (1934).

Arlen wrote “Last Night When We Were Young” (1935) with “Yip” Harburg, the tip of their iceberg, so to speak, because in 1939 they scored The Wizard of Oz. “Over the Rainbow” won the Oscar and became Judy Garland’s signature tune. But Arlen’s talent for creating complex melodic and rhythmic structur...