The Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity. The Great American Songbook became (and remains) a vital part of the repertoire of jazz musicians, who describe such songs simply as "jazz standards".

In one 1972 study of the canon, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, songwriter and critic Alec Wilder provided a list of the artists he believes belong to the Great American Songbook canon, as well as his ranking of their relative worth. A composer himself, Wilder's primary emphasis is analysis of composers and their creative efforts.

Wilder devotes whole chapters to only six artists: Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen. Vincent Youmans and Arthur Schwartz share another chapter; Burton Lane, Hugh Martin, and Vernon Duke share one more. Wilder provides one chapter covering songwriters he deemed "The Great Craftsmen": Hoagy Carmichael, Walter Donaldson, Harry Warren, Isham Jones, Jimmy McHugh, Duke Ellington, Fred Ahlert, Richard A. Whiting, Ray Noble, John Green, Rube Bloom, and Jimmy Van Heusen. Wilder concludes with a catch-all 67-page chapter entitled "Outstanding Individual Songs: 1920 to 1950" that includes other individual songs that he considers memorable.