“Three strikes and you’re out” almost came to summarize the life story of “The Man I Love,” but it was saved from oblivion by a combination of cocktail parties and a member of the British royalty. The song began life in 1924 as a verse George Gershwin had written for another song. In his book Lyrics for Several Occasions, Ira Gershwin writes, “It was a definite and insistent melody – so much so that we soon felt it wasn’t light and introductory enough, as it tended to overshadow the refrain and to demand individual attention. So this overweighty strain, not quite in tune as a verse, was, with slight modification, upped in importance to the status of a refrain. I gave it a simple set of words, then it had to acquire its own verse; and “The Man I Love” resulted.”

After its haphazard birth the song first was inserted into the musical Lady Be Good, the Gershwins’ first Broadway collaboration, because a potential investor in the show had heard George play it at a party and liked it. George and Ira wrote the score for the musical, which starred Fred Astaire and his sister Adele Astaire, and Adele was to introduce the song. During pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia, the song did not receive the vociferous applause given to the dance duets and novelty numbers, so was dropped from the show. Lady Be Good went on to Broadway, where it ran for 330 performances, but without “The Man I Love.”

It seemed that music producers liked “The Man I Love,” but couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Three years later, in 1927 when the Gershwins were writing the score for a satirical operetta, Strike Up The Band, producer Edgar Selwyn insisted that it be included in the show. However, the musical never made it to Broadway, closing after poor reviews of its out-of-town tryout in Philadelphia. Once again, “The Man I Love” had struck out.

Then, in 1928, producer Flo Ziegfeld wanted to use “The Man I Love” in the musical Rosalie. By that time Ira was thoroughly bored with the song as a possible show tune, but since it was to be introduced by Marilyn Miller, then Broadway’s biggest star, he thought that “maybe she could do something with it.” He re-wrote the lyrics a couple of times in an effort to get it to fit with the plot, but by opening night the song was out of the show. Ira didn’t recall that Miller had ever even rehearsed it. By now the song had struck out three times and was in danger of falling to the bottom of the Gershwin song roster. In the lively musicals of the 1920s, the ballad with its languorous tempo had proved to be the wrong kind of show-stopper.

Meanwhile, although “The Man I Love” was striking out on Broadway, it was quietly gaining recognition in another venue, the concert halls and nightclubs of Europe. Lady Edwina Mountbatten, a member of English royalty, heard George play it at a party and asked him for an autographed copy of the sheet music. Copies of the sheet music had been printed for selling in the theater lobby at the out-of town tryouts. (At the time it was customary for music publishers to sell sheet music for show songs at the theater, similar to selling CDs now.) When Lady Mountbatten returned to London, she gave the music to her favorite band, the Berkeley Square Orchestra, and the band began playing it at their concerts. Other London bands picked up the song by ear, since the published song hadn’t been released there, and from London it spread to Paris, where black jazz bands began performing it in nightclubs.

The song’s popularity abroad induced the Gershwins’ music publisher, Max Dreyfus, to decide to plug “The Man I Love” through Tin Pan Alley contacts rather than attempting to get it into another musical. However, pushing it as a pop tune presented a challenge. In his biography of Ira Gershwin, Philip Furia explains, “One problem with marketing “The Man I Love” as a straight pop song was that Ira had neglected one of the finer, but important, points of his new trade: in order for a song to get the maximum exposure through recordings, live and radio performance, its lyric needed to be androgynous – genderless “me” cooing to an equally unisex “you” – so that it could be sung as easily by a male as by a female vocalist. The problem with “The Man I Love” was not so much the title, which easily became “The Girl I Love,” but, as Ira himself admitted, with such obdurate lines as “and she’ll be big and strong – the girl I love.” Dreyfus convinced the Gershwins to take a cut in the sheet music royalties, from the customary six cents, three cents for the composer and three cents for the lyricist, to four cents, or two cents for each of them, in order to provide money for exploitation. Ira writes, “We cut, he exploited, and the song began to be heard quite a bit and sold fairly well – within six months about one hundred thousand copies, plus several good recordings.”

The thrice-orphaned “The Man I Love” found a home with torch singers like Helen Morgan, who added it to her nightclub act, and its popularity was assured. In 1928 it reached the pop charts four times, with a recording by Marion Harris leading the way, which peaked at #4. Harris was followed by Sophie Tucker (#11), Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra with vocalist Vaughan DeLeath (#15), and Fred Rich and His Orchestra with vocalist Vaughan DeLeath (#19). In 1937 it charted again with Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (#20). Fifteen years after the song was written, one of its most definitive renditions was recorded by Billie Holiday, with her friend Lester Young on saxophone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzJMTSaAl8g&feature=PlayList&p=4B5F2D2FCD...

In 1943 a landmark recording by tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins brought “The Man I Love” to the attention of instrumentalists. At www.jazzstandards.com jazz musician and historian Chirs Tyle comments, “Normally played as a ballad, Hawkins doubled the tempo for an extended romp. From the first chorus, by (pianist) Eddie Heywood, the players eschew the melody in favor of improvisation. Hawkins, who had a keen ear for talent, utilizes young lions Oscar Pettiford on bass and Shelley Manne on drums to round out the rhythm section.” Click here to listen to an early 78 rpm pressing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BEx6DK3MUs The recording currently is available on CD as part of the Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Coleman Hawkins. Pianists especially have made memorable performances of the song, including Ray Charles, Oscar Peterson, Don Shirley, Art Tatum and Mary Lou Williams. Click here to listen to Williams live at the Monteux Jazz Festival performing a modern-sounding and harmonically rich version of “The Man I Love”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b--Ecp7meGM

Ira Gershwin had one final comment on the tortuous history of “The Man I Love:” “Mildly Ironic Addendum: In December 1929, Strike Up the Band, after a major job of rewriting by Morrie Ryskind and ourselves, was produced by Edgar Selwyn to critical acclaim. But the song he loved wasn’t in it. Its popularity by this time precluded any possible use in the score – and a probable fourth ousting.”

“THE MAN I LOVE”
By George and Ira Gershwin

VERSE
When the mellow moon begins to beam,
Ev’ry night I dream a little dream;
And of course Prince Charming is the theme:
The he
For me.
Although I realize as well as you
It is seldom that a dream comes true,
To me it’s clear
That he’ll appear.

REFRAIN
Some day he’ll come along,
The man I love;
And he’ll be big and strong,
The man I love;
And when he comes my way,
I’ll do my best to make him stay.

He’ll look at me and smile—
I’ll understand;
And in a little while
He’ll take my hand;
And though it seems absurd,
I know we both won’t say a word.

Maybe I shall meet him Sunday,
Maybe Monday—maybe not;
Still I’m sure to meet him one day—
Maybe Tuesday
Will be my good news day.

He’ll build a little home
Just meant for two;
From which I’ll never roam—
Who would? Would you?
And so all else above,
I’m waiting for the man I love.

The perennial question in songwriting of which came first, the words or the music, is easily answered in the case of the Gershwins. George’s music came first, followed by brother Ira’s lyrics. George explained, “I hit on a new tune and play it for Ira and he hums it all over the place for awhile till he gets an idea for a lyric. Then we work the thing out together.” Ira confirmed that the music was first, saying, “Since most of the lyrics … were arrived at by fitting words mosaically to music already composed, any resemblance to actual poetry, living or dead, is highly improbable.” “Embraceable You” frequently is cited as the perfect fit of words to music.

Although George and Ira Gershwin had radically different writing styles, their contrasting personalities were well matched for songwriting. George was impulsive, flamboyant and aggressive. Ira was quiet, bookish and reserved. In his biography of Ira Gershwin, Philip Furia quotes their sister Frances regarding the contrast in her brothers’ work habits. She recalled George “would write a song sometimes in just a few minutes. There were very few things he would have to struggle over…It all came so easy to him. Ira, on the other hand, was a perfectionist. He would work all night on one word sometimes.” Furia goes on to point out, “Ira’s tortoise-like pace was not just a reflection of his personality but an indication of how difficult it was to find syllables, words, and phrases to match George’s music. Where composers such as Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers gave their lyricists long and flowing melodic lines that provided ample space for lyrical development, George Gershwin strove for what he termed “staccato effects” and a “stenciled style.” His melodies consisted of abrupt, angular phrases that gave a lyricist, as Ira himself put it, little room to ‘turn around.’”

The melody of “Embraceable You” presented Ira with some significant challenges. George wrote a string of percussive repeated notes so daunting to Ira that Furia writes, “ …he checked himself into a hotel room for three days to find words to fit them. What he finally came up with, “Come to papa, come to papa do!” gave “Embraceable You” the rhythmic kick that is the “Hallmark” of a Gershwin song.” Apparently, the father of George and Ira was delighted with this phrase, believing it alluded to himself. In his book, Lyrics on Several Occasions, Ira wrote, “Incidentally, the song was one of my father’s favorites. Whenever possible, with company present, his request to George was: “Play that song about me.” And when the line “come to papa—come to papa—do!” was sung, he would thump his chest, look around the room, and beam.”

George Gershwin wrote the music for “Embraceable You” in 1928 for a Flo Ziegfeld production with a oriental theme, East is West, which never opened. Eighteen months later, in 1930, “Embraceable You” reemerged in a show with a Wild West theme, Girl Crazy. Songwriters commonly would recycle unused songs from one production to another show, which could have a very different motif. “Embraceable You” was introduced as a duet sung by the female and male romantic leads, Ginger Rogers and Allen Kearns. In addition to “Embraceable You,” the Gershwins also gave Rogers another great song, “But Not For Me.” It was Rogers’ Broadway debut as a leading lady and she couldn’t have asked for two better songs to sing. With material like that, her debut should have been an unmitigated triumph for her. But there was another debut on opening night that unexpectedly stole her limelight: Ethel Merman introducing the Gershwins’ “I Got Rhythm.” At the end of the first act Merman launched into the song and stopped the show. Pre-opening night, she had received much less publicity than Rogers and much less money; Rogers was paid $1,500 per week and she was paid $375. But after opening night, the headline for one review read, “Unknown Singer Steals Honors of ‘Girl Crazy’.” Reviewers were effusive in their praise, saying Merman was the outstanding personality on the stage and that she “just rolled it up and took it away.”

Girl Crazy was a hit with audiences and critics, making stars of Rogers and Merman and running for 272 performances. George Gershwin conducted the pit band on opening night, and received as much applause as the cast. Members of the band included Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, Red Nichols and Jack Teagarden. The band thrilled the opening night audience with jam sessions during the intermission. Unlike most Broadway shows of that era, which usually disappeared into oblivion after they closed, Girl Crazy enjoyed an extensive after-life. RKO adapted it for a 1932 film, which retained little of the original score and was judged an inferior effort that relied on sophomoric comedy. A 1943 film adaption by MGM that featured Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in their eighth film kept the original plot and score almost entirely intact and was generally well reviewed. In 1966 MGM revisited the musical again, this time using it as the basis for a film titled When the Boys Meet the Girls, starring Connie Francis and Harve Presnell; the Gershwin songs were the highlight of that film. “Embraceable You” has appeared in at least fourteen other films, ranging from Rhapsody in Blue in 1945 to The Human Stain in 2003. The most successful re-cycling of Girl Crazy was in 1992, when it appeared on Broadway once again, this time as the basis for the hit show Crazy for You. The show ran for 1622 performances with a score that included seven songs from Girl Crazy and thirteen other Gershwin songs.

Although “Embraceable You” had the misfortune of being on the wrong end of a historic Broadway moment, it was only a momentary setback. A few weeks after it was introduced in Girl Crazy, a recording by Red Nichols and his Five Pennies entered the pop charts, rising to #2. The flip side of the recording, “I Got Rhythm,” rose no higher than #5 on the charts. The preference of music fans in 1930 is reflected in the popularity of the two songs today. While the chord progressions of “I Got Rhythm” have been used as the basis for hundreds of jazz songs, “Embraceable You” is more widely recorded by jazz artists, especially after trumpeter Bobby Hackett’s 1939 recording brought the song's virtues to their attention. At www.jazzstandards.com, jazz pianist and educator Noah Baerman comments, “Bobby Hackett’s big band version of “Embraceable You” (1938-1940) is a terrific performance and a historical stand-out. The same could be said of Charlie Parker’s rendition (Complete Dial Sessions), which displays his endless invention and offers a glimpse of how ballad playing changed in the bebop era. To become familiar with the tune, however, the place to start is with Sarah Vaughan’s historic recording of 1954 (Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown), one of her crowning moments as an interpreter of ballads.” Click here to listen to Sarah Vaughan’s rendition of “Embraceable You”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz-IYM1ikHk

In his definitive book on the American popular song, musicologist Alec Wilder writes, “I don’t suppose anyone really knows which of all the Gershwin songs has had the most performances. But “Embraceable You” might be neck and neck with “The Man I Love.” He goes on to comment, “After attempting to disassociate myself from the hundreds of hearings of this song so as to consider it with detachment, I can say that it is undoubtedly a marvelous illustration of simplicity and economy.”

“EMBRACEABLE YOU”

Male Part
VERSE
Dozens of girls would storm up;
I had to lock my door.
Somehow I couldn’t warm up
To one before.
What was it that controlled me?
What kept my love-life lean?
My intuition told me
You’d come on the scene.
Lady, listen to the rhythm of my heart beat,
And you’ll get just what I mean.

REFRAIN
Embrace me,
My sweet embraceable you.
Embrace me,
You irreplaceable you.
Just one look at you – my heart grew tipsy in me;
You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me.
I love all
The many charms about you;
Above all
I want my arms about you.
Don’t be a naughty baby,
Come to papa – come to papa – do!
My sweet embraceable you.

Female Part
VERSE
I went about reciting,
“Here’s one who’ll never fall!”
But I’m afraid the writing
Is on the wall.
My nose I used to turn up
When you’d besiege my heart;
Now I completely burn up
When you’re slow to start.
I’m afraid you’ll have to take the consequences;
You upset the apple cart.

REFRAIN
Embrace me,
My sweet embraceable you.
Embrace me,
You irreplaceable you.
In your arms I find love so delectable, dear,
I’m afraid it isn’t quite respectable, dear.
But hang it –
Come on, let’s glorify love!
Ding Dang it!
You’ll shout “Encore!” if I love.
Don’t be a naughty papa,
Come to baby – come to baby – do!
My sweet embraceable you.

“How long has this been going on?” usually is asked in reference to the discovery of something unpleasant, like when someone learns his or her lover is having an affair. However, lyricist Ira Gershwin twisted around the catchphrase to refer to the delight and wonderment discovered in a first kiss. In 1927 he and his brother George wrote “How Long Has This Been Going On?” for the Broadway musical Smarty. The song was to be sung as a duet by Adele Astaire and Jack Buchanan on the occasion of their first kiss. But, during pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia, Smarty received poor reviews and had to be substantially re-worked. After changes in the music, book and cast, it opened on Broadway as Funny Face, where it enjoyed a successful run of 244 performances. Fred Astaire had been added to the show and “How Long Has This Been Going On?” had been dropped.

In his book Lyrics on Several Occasions Ira Gershwin describes how “How Long Has This Been Going On?” came to be eliminated from Funny Face in a section he entitled Blue Pencil Out of the Blue: “I was at work in my room at the Ritz-Carlton when the telephone rang. The caller was the then professional manager of Shapiro Bernstein & Co., one of the three or four most important popular-music [publishing] houses. He said: “I saw your show last night. Not very good.” I agreed that we needed fixing. He: “You’ve got a number called ‘How Long Has This Been Going On?’” Myself: “Yes, what about it?” He: “Doesn’t mean a thing.” I couldn’t agree to that extent, but did concede its reception had been lukewarm; still, why his interest in this particular number? He: “Well, we bought a song with the same title and we’re about to publish it. Yours is getting you nowhere, so how about taking it out of the show?” Ira wasn’t pleased, calling it “as gratuitous a request as ever I heard,” but he went on to relate how a couple of weeks later it had been cut, replaced by “He Loves and She Loves,” a song he judged “not as good a song as the former, but one that managed to get over.” He wryly commented that apparently the publishing company didn’t enjoy much success with their song, because he never heard it or of it.

“How Long Has This Been Going On?” didn’t languish for long without a home; it was introduced on Broadway in 1928 in the musical Rosalie. Ira says, “Two months later the eliminated song, because [Florenz] Ziegfeld liked it, found itself in Rosalie. There being no spot in the show for it as a duet, it became--with a few line changes--a solo for the soubrette, played by Bobbe Arnst.” Thirty years later “How Long Has This Been Going On?” was reunited with Funny Face when the play was made into a film starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn; the song was sung by Hepburn and also appeared as an instrumental. Although the original lyrics, written as a duet between two lovers, are shown below, the song was never performed as a duet in either Rosalie or Funny Face.
Click here to see Hepburn’s performance in Funny Face of “How Long Has This Been Going On?”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O79oF4j__fA

Rosalie had an extended run of 335 performances, with a score that included songs by Sigmund Romberg in addition to those by the Gershwins. The only song from the show that became a hit was “How Long Has This Been Going On?” However, that didn’t happen immediately. In 1940, long after the show in which it debuted had closed, it was recorded for the first time by vocalist Lee Wiley with the Max Kaminsky Orchestra. The recording boosted its popularity, but the song didn’t really catch on until 1941, when Peggy Lee recorded it with the Benny Goodman Orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C6yjbplxQ Thirteen years after the song debuted, it had survived its initial rejection and was on its way to becoming one of the most frequently recorded songs written by the Gershwin brothers.

Why did the song take so long to achieve notoriety? It has been speculated that in the 1920s the public wasn’t ready for composer George Gershwin’s jazz influenced melodies. At www.jazzstandards.com jazz historian Sandy Burlingame writes, “In The Gershwin Style: New Looks as the Music of George Gershwin editor Wayne Schneider suggests that the tenor of times may have reflected on the song’s popularity since many people in the 1920s still considered jazz “the devil’s music.” Many whites feared the infiltration of black culture into otherwise “white” music. “ In this context, the blue thirds of ‘How Long Has This Been Going On?’ were sufficient to contaminate the entire piece in the ears of some listeners. From today’s perspective, one can see and hear those blue thirds as attractive reflections of black music encapsulated within the thirty-two-measure American popular song.”

In his book Listening to Classic American Songs, Allen Forte provides an in-depth musical analysis of “How Long Has This Been Going On?” He describes George’s use of the pentatonic scale, relating it to the folk and religious music of African-Americans. He praises the song for its integration of lyrics, rhythm, and harmony and goes on to comment on the beauty of Ira’s lyrics and how they perfectly matched George’s melody. Against the background of George’s exotic chords, Forte describes how “…Ira gives us his all, with the erotic lyric “Oh, I feel that I could melt; into Heaven I’m hurled” – erotic for that time, that is. Contemporary listeners did not need to call Dr. Freud to tell them what those lines implied.”

“HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON?”
By George and Ira Gershwin

He
VERSE
As a tot, when I trotted in little velvet panties,
I was kissed by my sisters, my cousins and my aunties.
Sad to tell it was Hell – an Inferno worse than Dante’s.
So, my dear, I swore,
“Never, nevermore!”
On my list I insisted that kissing must be crossed out.
Now I find I was blind, and, oh lady, how I’ve lost out!

REFRAIN
I could cry salty tears;
Where have I been all these years?
Little wow,
Tell me now:
How long has this been going on?

There were chills up my spine,
And some thrills I can’t define.
Listen, sweet,
I repeat:
How long has this been going on?

Oh, I feel that I could melt;
Into heaven I’m hurled-
I know how Columbus felt
Finding another world.

Kiss me once, then once more.
What a dunce I was before!
What a break-
For heaven’s sake!
How long has this been going on?

She
VERSE
‘Neath the stars at bazaars often I’ve had to caress men.
Five or ten dollars then I’d collect from all those yes-men.
Don’t be sad, I must add that they meant no more than chessmen.
Darling can’t you see
‘Twas for charity?
Though these lips have made slips, it was never really serious.
Who’d ‘a’ thought I’d be brought to a state that’s so delirious?

REFRAIN
I could cry salty tears;
Where have I been all these years?
Listen, you-
Tell me, do:
How long has this been going on?

What a kick-how I buzz!
Boy, you click as no one does!
Hear me, sweet,
I repeat:
How long has this been going on?

Dear, when in your arms I creep-
That divine rendezvous-
Don’t wake me, if I’m asleep,
Let me dream that it’s true.

Kiss me twice, then once more-
That makes thrice, let’s make it four!
What a break-
For heaven’s sake!
How long has this been going on?

When Mae West introduced “My Old Flame” in the Paramount Pictures film Belle of the Nineties, she was relying more on her style of delivery than her actual singing ability. Born in 1893, by the time she became a movie star in the 1930s she had already spent over 30 years on the stage. Her mother had encouraged her stage career as a way to escape her working class background on the Lower East Side of New York, and by age eight West was performing regularly and supplementing the family income with her earnings. She started out in burlesque and vaudeville and moved on to star on Broadway. And, even though she wasn’t much of a singer, she knew how to sell a song. In 1913 a reviewer for the New York Morning Telegraph wrote, “Miss West can’t sing a bit but she can dance like George Cohan, and personality just permeates the air every minute she is on stage. In other words, it isn’t what Miss West does, but the way she does it that assures her a brilliant career on the stage." In 1967 psychologist and pioneer in non-verbal communications research, Albert Mehrabian, reported that face-to-face communication was 7% verbal, 38% vocal tone and 55% facial attitude. His findings became famous and widely cited, but they weren’t news to Mae West. Sixty years earlier she already was well aware of the power of non-verbal communication and was making it work for her as a performer. She said, “It isn't what I do, but how I do it. It isn't what I say, but how I say it, and how I look when I do it and say it.” Sexual innuendo and bawdy double entendres became her stock-in-trade.

In the spring of 1934 when Paramount was filming Belle of the Nineties, the Motion Picture Production Code began to be strictly enforced and film censorship greatly escalated. Some said it was in direct response to West’s films, known for their blatant sexuality. Belle of the Nineties was the fourth film West made for Paramount Pictures, but the first under the strict censorship guidelines. West wrote the plot for the film, which she originally titled It Ain’t No Sin. In her biography, Mae West: An Icon in Black and White, Jill Walls describes how in the first draft the central character is a former prostitute, Ruby Carter, who beats murder and thief charges in 1890s St. Louis and leaves crime behind to become the city’s top burlesque queen. She falls for a prizefighter and ex-con, Tiger Kid. After various misadventures, which include murdering an unscrupulous nightclub owner and setting his club on fire to conceal the murder, they flee the scene on a Mississippi riverboat. As the film ends and they sail off together, Tiger Kid asks, “Where do we go from here?” and Ruby replies, “Didn’t your mother tell you anything?” But after the censors finished with it, the film has been renamed Belle of the Nineties, Ruby is transformed into a cabaret entertainer and she and Tiger Kid are married by a justice of the peace at the end of the film instead of running away together without hint of matrimony. Movie critic Hal Erickson writes, “The surest sign that the Code had "tamed" West a bit is the fact that she actually marries the hero at film's end. The musical highlights include West's unforgettable rendition of "My Old Flame".” Jazz journalist Doug Ramsey describes that rendition as being in “full insinuando.” Click here to listen to Mae West backed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMsFheQUxos

West exercised far more control over her films than was characteristic of actresses at that time, but at the beginning of 1934 she was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. It was said that the success of her films had saved Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy. For Belle of the Nineties she demanded that Duke Ellington and his orchestra be hired over Paramount’s objections that he was too expensive. In her book Walls relates, “West recalled that they first assigned a white jazz band to the film and after her continued complaints, later offered her black extras to sit in and mimic music played by white musicians. She held fast, insisting that “you can’t take white people and play black music.” Later, both West and Ellington attributed the studio’s opposition more to racism than finances. Despite Paramount’s resistance, West won out, and not only did Ellington play a visible role in the film, his orchestra provided all the music. Although white songwriters Sam Coslow and Arthur Johnston were credited with the film’s score, Ellington substantially reworked the film’s two central numbers, “My Old Flame” and “Troubled Waters”.”

Although Belle of the Nineties was a success, “My Old Flame” didn’t become a major hit and never charted. Duke Ellington recorded it first for Victor Records in 1934, but not with West; instead he used his band’s regular vocalist, Ivie Anderson. A 1947 parody of the song by Spike Jones and His City Slickers was probably its most popular recording and the one that achieved the highest record sales. However, musicians liked “My Old Flame” even if it didn’t catch on with the public. In American Popular Song, Alec Wilder judges it to be “A very fine song!” He writes approvingly of the way it “beautifully uses a device which many songs have used down the years, that of dropping down to a note not in the scale of the key in which the song is written.” The song has been recorded hundreds of times; a 1947 recording by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker with a young Miles Davis on trumpet is considered one of the standout instrumental versions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOwEr4UaqzM Other standouts include recordings by Benny Goodman with vocalist Peggy Lee, singers Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington, trombonist J.J. Johnson and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan.

Because West was involved in every aspect of making Belle of the Nineties, she may even have had a hand in writing the lyrics for “My Old Flame.” At www.jazzstandards.com jazz historian Chris Tyle speculates, “Knowing West’s involvement with the film and her lightly-veiled eroticism, one wonders if she had some input into Coslow’s lyrics. Lines such as “I can’t even think of his name” and “my new lovers all seem so tame” almost seem to suggest a one-night stand of years before. Pretty heady stuff for 1934 audiences.”

Although West’s eroticism and double entendres made her very popular with film audiences, they terrorized the film censors. Censors were obsessed with the fear that they might miss something that would violate the Production Code guidelines. Consequently, they scrutinized every word of dialogue, causing West to complain, “If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.” She fought back, but as a pragmatist she knew she had to appear to go along with the censors’ deletions and revisions. In September of 1934, around the time Belle of the Nineties was released, the Los Angeles Times wrote, “Who’s afraid of the big bad censors? Not Mae West. “If you can’t go straight, then you’ve got to go around,” she says. And bingo, how double meanings flash from that.”

“MY OLD FLAME”
By Sam Coslow and Arthur Johnston

VERSE
The music seemed to be so reminiscent
I knew I heard it somewhere before
I racked my recollections as I listened
When suddenly I remembered once more

REFRAIN
My old flame
I can't even think of his name
But it's funny now and then
How my thoughts go flashing back again
To my old flame

My old flame
My new lovers all seem so tame
For I haven't met a gent
So magnificent or elegant
As my old flame

I've met so many who have
Fascinating ways
A fascinating gaze in their eyes
Some who took me up to the skies
But their attempts at love
Were only imitations of

My old flame
I can't even think of his name
But I'll never be the same
Until I discover what became
Of my old flame

You have to wonder how one of the most melancholy jazz songs about love came to be written for a film starring the slapstick comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Gene De Paul and Don Raye wrote “You Don’t Know What Love Is” for the 1941 Universal Pictures film Keep ‘Em Flying. In the film Abbott and Costello are assistants to a daredevil stunt pilot. When the pilot is fired by a mean-spirited boss, he and his assistants enlist in the Army Air Corps, with chaotic results. Actress Carol Bruce playing the role of a USO hostess and singer was to sing “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” but the song was dropped from the film shortly before its release. One can only imagine how much of a mismatch it must have been with a film whose tagline was: “As Co-Pilots... They're Co-Riots! They've got the whole Army Air Corps in a sky-high uproar... and sweeping the nation in fun-formation!”

“You Don’t Know What Love Is” escaped one farcical film, only to end up in a second one. In 1942 Carol Bruce got her chance to introduce the song, backed by the Sonny Dunham Orchestra, in another Universal Pictures film, Behind the Eight Ball, which starred the Ritz Brothers comedy team. The three Ritz Brothers play the Three Jolly Jesters, Manhattan washroom attendants with show business aspirations. Although “You Don’t Know What Love Is” was in the film, it was overshadowed by two other songs that were much bigger hits at the time, “Mister Five By Five,” by De Paul and Raye, and a Ritz Brothers specialty number, Charles Atlas Did It For Me.”

De Paul and Raye had teamed together to write songs for several Hollywood films, including other Abbott and Costello comedies. They must have known the kind of film they were writing for, but went ahead anyway with creating a very intense and sad song. In American Popular Song, Alec Wilder writes, “This is gloom in the raw, not that fake melodrama the commercial boys turn out.” He goes on to say, “I believe the validity of this melody lies in its believability. It wasn’t the result of songwriters getting together and deciding that the time was ripe to put a sad song on the market. Mr. De Paul was sad and had to write about it.” That makes it all the most puzzling why they would compose a song like “You Don’t Know What Love Is” for a film like Keep ‘Em Flying. At www.jazzstandards.com Jeremy Wilson comments: “Few compositions are as genuinely melancholy as “You Don’t What Love Is.” As such, it is difficult to find the title mentioned without an accompanying characterization including, “strange,” “intense,” “gloomy,” “smoky,” “late night,” “sad,” “passionate,” and, of course, “haunting.” Don Raye’s piercing lyrics accentuate the heartbreaking feeling staged by De Paul. You don’t know what love is, he claims, until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues. As one critic puts it, “the lyrics draw out the exquisite pain!” The song could hardly be a worse fit for a slapstick comedy, being much better suited to film-noir, and in 1999 it did serve as the leitmotif for the tense, psychological thriller, The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Its film career didn’t help “You Don’t Know What Love Is” to reach the pop charts and it was never a major hit. It was recorded sporadically in the 1940s, mainly by big bands with male vocalists. Guitarist Jimmy Raney made the first non-vocal recording in 1951, and then recordings by trumpeters Miles Davis and Chet Baker moved the song into the jazz canon. Since then it has been covered hundreds of times by vocalists and instrumentalists, and is ranked in 53rd place out of the top 1000 most recorded jazz standards at www.jazzstandards.com.

In 1956 tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins recorded “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” accompanied by pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Doug Watkins and drummer Max Roach, for one of his most acclaimed albums, Saxophone Colossus. His version is widely considered to be the definitive instrumental performance of the tune. At www.jazz.com reviewer Ted Gioia states, “From the moment Rollins barks out the opening note of his unaccompanied intro, the listener understands that this won't be your typical melancholy love ballad. The tenorist roughs up this tune with a muscular performance that befits a saxophone colossus. Moments of tenderness bubble up from time to time, but before long some angular phrase or barrage of notes or honk in the low register will assert its mantra of tough love. Rollins's solo is commanding, and Flanagan finds himself left to clean up the battlefield after the general has departed. For those who want a smoother, more sentimental ballad, Rollins has announced: "You don't know what love is." Click here for Sonny Rollins’ rendition of “You Don’t Know What Love Is”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLFlJIqiMLc

There are particularly noteworthy vocal versions of “You Don’t Know What Love Is” as well, including one recorded by Chet Baker in 1955 and one by Billie Holiday in 1958. Holiday’s rendition was on her last album, Lady in Satin, recorded a year before her death: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EJvDH6BWww&feature=related

Cassandra Wilson, WICN’s Artist of the Month for February, also recorded “You Don’t Know What Love Is” on her album Blue Light ‘Til Dawn in a performance that one critic said, “Just hearing this evokes the spirit of Lady Day…” Decide for yourself - listen to a live performance by Wilson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fUGDnd2Fwk

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS”
By Gene De Paul and Don Raye

You don't know what love is
Until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues
Until you’ve lost a love you've had to lose
You don't know what love is.

You don't know how lips hurt?
Until you've kissed and had to pay the cost?
Until you've flipped your heart and you have lost?
You don't know what love is.

Do you know how a lost heart fears
The thought of reminiscing?
And how lips that taste of tears?
Lose their taste for kissing.

You don't know how hearts burn?
For love that cannot live yet never dies?
Until you've faced each dawn with sleepless eyes?
You don't know what love is.

(Instrumental interlude)

You don't know how hearts burn?
For love that cannot live yet never dies?
Until you've faced each dawn with sleepless eyes?
You don't know what love is.

Most Valentine’s Day songs are dedicated to lovers, but this week’s song is for all the would-be lovers, the people who aren’t in love but want to be: “I Wish I Were In Love Again.” The song was introduced as a duet by Grace MacDonald and Rolly Pickert in the 1937 Broadway musical Babes in Arms, for which Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote the score. The musical, though receiving rave reviews from critics on opening night, was not an immediate box office success; however, as other shows on Broadway closed, it gained momentum and ran for 289 performances. After becoming a major hit on Broadway, it then went on a hugely successful tour. The show recouped its initial $70,00 investment several times over and enabled Rodgers to buy a weekend home on Long Island and Hart to continue to live a frenetic lifestyle of drinking and partying, for which he always insisted on picking up the tab.

Rodgers and Hart were introduced by a mutual acquaintance in 1919, when Rodgers was sixteen and Hart was twenty-three years old. Rodgers had already begun writing melodies, having composed his first complete musical comedy score when he was fourteen. In his autobiography, Musical Stages, he writes: “I knew what I wanted to do and I knew where I was heading, but I also knew something else: every song needs words. I did not feel I was sufficiently adept at lyric-writing and I had not met anyone who I thought was. In my search for a partner I buttonholed almost everyone I knew for suggestions. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long before someone did come up with the right name.” That "right name" was Hart, and they first met at Hart’s home, a brownstone in Manhattan where he lived with his parents. Rodgers said, “As I wrote in a magazine article many years ago: “I left Hart’s house having acquired in one afternoon a career, a partner, a best friend, and a source of permanent irritation.”

In 1939 MGM made Babes in Arms into a film starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, but many of the songs from the original Broadway show were cut from the movie, including “I Wish I Were In Love Again.” In 1948 MGM released Words and Music, a biopic based loosely on the lives of Rodgers and Hart, in which Tom Drake was cast as Rodgers and Mickey Rooney as Hart. Hart’s life was sanitized in the film because the censorship guidelines imposed by the Hollywood Production Code made it impossible to accurately depict his complex psychological problems, self–destructive behavior and struggles with his homosexuality. The film is best remembered for showcasing Rodgers and Hart songs and because it was the final pairing on screen of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. In the film they sang “I Wish I Were In Love Again.” Click here for their duet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z32L_7A3gKM

After listening to Garland and Rooney singing "I Wish I Were In Love Again," most people would probably agree with author Alec Wilder's opinion. In American Popular Song he states, “In Babes in Arms (1937) there was a song – “I Wish I Were In Love Again” – I heard much later on. Fortunately, I heard it sung by a man who had realized the extraordinary level of the lyric and so sang two sets of lyrics, both by Hart, of course. Let me say that the melody, from verse through to the end, is a perfect set of notes for the lyric. It is even strong enough to sustain itself as an instrumental piece. But once you’ve heard the lyric, your attention must be drawn toward the words.” Therefore, not surprisingly, most recordings of the song have been by vocalists. It was recorded twice by Judy Garland, once in 1946 and again in 1948, and other notable recordings include ones by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Tony Bennett, and more recently, Stacey Kent.

The lyrics and music fit together so superbly because Hart’s intricate rhyming style perfectly complemented Rodgers’ melody. In his book, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley, Philip Furia writes that at Rodgers and Hart’s first meeting, Hart castigated other lyricists “for their failure to use “interior rhymes, feminine rhymes, triple rhymes and false rhymes” – indeed anything but the simplest and tritest “juxtapositions of words like ‘slush’ and ‘mush.’” Furia goes on to comment, “Not only did Rodgers’ music provide a structure for such intricate rhymes, its sonority (Cole Porter once quipped that every Rodgers melody had a certain “holiness” about it) served as a perfect counterpoint to Hart’s cynical urbanity. Rodgers himself said that the secret of their best songs was the clash between a “sentimental melody and unsentimental lyrics,” a clash punctuated by caustic rhymes.”

“I Wish I Were In Love Again” is a Cole Porter-like list song in which the images of love grow increasingly violent, from "sleepless nights” and “broken dates” escalating to “conversations with the flying plates” and “pulled out fur” and culminating with “the blackened eye.” Yet, in the end the singer professes, “I don’t like quiet and I wish I were in love again!” In Babes in Arms it was Hart’s wittiest song, and shows him at his sardonic best. Who else could devise a sequence of rhymes about love like “congeals,” “reveals,” “seals,” and “heels?” Hart's addiction to rhyming drove fellow lyricist Howard Dietz to comment, “Larry Hart can rhyme anything – and does!"

Hart was an expert at writing masochistic love songs like "I Wish I Were In Love Again," possibly helped by his own lack of romantic success; he never was in a satisfactory love relationship. He was barely five feet tall, balding, and was very insecure about his appearance and personal attractiveness. He used hair potions in an attempt to restore his hair and at one point resorted to elevator shoes in an effort to appear taller. In his biography of Hart, A Poet on Broadway, Frederick Nolan relates a telling comment Hart made to a reporter: “What about his love life, asked a lady reporter from Popular Songs magazine. “Love life?” Larry replied, “I haven’t any.” Then he was a confirmed bachelor? “Of course,” he said, “Nobody would want me.” Nolan goes on to say, “Everyone who knew him affirmed that Larry Hart wanted desperately to be loved, perhaps even conventionally married.”

In “I Wish I Were In Love Again” Hart's acerbic humor doesn't conceal the longing for love. Philip Furia writes, “Still to want love - knowing how bad it feels, looks, and even smells – is yet another of Hart’s backhanded tributes to its power, love seen not through the bright eyes of Romeo and Juliet but through the baggy lids of Antony and Cleopatra.”

“I WISH I WERE IN LOVE AGAIN”
By Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

VERSE
You don't know that I felt good
When we up and parted.
You don't know I knocked on wood
Gladly broken-hearted.
Worrying is through
I sleep all night
Appetite and health restored.
You don't know how much I'm bored!

REFRAIN 1
The sleepless nights,
The daily fights
The quick toboggan when you reach the heights
I miss the kisses and I miss the bites
I wish I were in love again!

The broken dates,
The endless waits,
The lovely loving and the hateful hates,
The conversations with the flying plates
I wish I were in love again!

No more pain
No more strain
Now I'm sane but...
I would rather be gaga!
The pulled-out fur
Of cat and cur
The fine mis-mating of a him and her
I've learned my lesson, but I wish I were
In love again!

REFRAIN 2
The furtive sigh
The blackened eye,
The words "I'll love you till the day I day"
The self-deception that believes the lie
I wish I were in love again!

When love congeals
It soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals
The double-crossing of a pair of heels.
I wish I were in love again!

No more care
No despair
I'm all there now
But I'd rather be punch-drunk!
Believe me sir
I much prefer
The classic battle of a him and her.
I don't like quiet and
I wish I were in love again!

In February the Song of the Week will focus on jazz standards with the theme of love, but not love of the sweetly romantic variety. Instead, this month’s songs will feature love on the edge, beginning with Cole Porter’s composition of anguished puzzlement, “What Is This Thing Called Love?”

The song was introduced in the musical revue Wake Up and Dream, which opened in 1929 in March at the London Palladium and in December on Broadway. Wake Up and Dream involved 24 different sets, 500 costumes and a large international cast. “What Is This Thing Called Love?” was given an exotic presentation in the revue, in which Elsie Carlisle, torch-singer style, sang it while dancer Tillie Losch gyrated to the beat of tom-toms in front of an actor dressed as an African idol. The show was moderately successful in London, running for 263 performances, but received mixed reviews on Broadway. The critic for the New Yorker magazine wrote that it was “one of the dullest revues ever put on the local boards.” The stock market had crashed two months prior to its Broadway opening, which adversely affected ticket sales and the show closed after a shortened run.

In spite of the show’s disappointing performance on Broadway, it still served to boost Porter’s burgeoning reputation, thanks to influential newspaper columnist Walter Winchell. In his biography of Cole Porter, The Life that Late He Led, George Eells writes, “Paradoxically, however, the show further established Cole as a songwriter of distinction. Walter Winchell was so taken with “What Is This Thing Called Love?” that he hailed it in his column as a new kind of love song. Although Wake Up and Dream ran only 136 performances, Winchell’s campaign on behalf of that one song left Cole considerably better known than he had ever been before.”

“What Is This Thing Called Love?” has innovative harmonic changes that alternate between major and minor keys, and Porter claimed that the song was inspired by Moroccan native dance. Music critics agree with Winchell in their assessment of the quality of the song. In his book American Popular Song, Alec Wilder claims it “is one of Porter’s best songs and is accepted as such. To begin with, its verse is the first of Porter’s I’ve examined so far which sounds as if it had been given great care and consideration.” Wilder goes on to provide a detailed musical analysis of the unusual chord changes in the song, ending with describing the song’s release as a “wonderful amalgam of superior melodic writing and highly unusual harmony.”

The harmonic changes have attracted hundreds of musicians to the song. At www.jazzstandards.com “What Is This Thing Called Love?” is ranked as the most recorded song that Cole Porter wrote, with “Love for Sale” coming in a somewhat distant second. In his book Popular Standards, Max Morath comments, “Plenty of singers have recorded this Porter Standard, but the jazz instrumentalists outnumber them five to one. Porter was equally inventive with words and music, and in this thirty-two-bar AABA composition, the chord progression is the magnet…” The chord changes have served as the basis for several jazz compositions, including “Hot House” by Tadd Dameron, “Barry’s Bop” by Fats Navarro, “Subconscious-Lee” by Lee Konitz, and “Fifth House” by John Coltrane.

Even though the song is more frequently performed as an instrumental, its lyrics are a perfect fit for the melody. In The Poets of Tin Pan Alley, Philip Furia cites this song as an example of Porter’s ability to write brooding, melodramatic ballads with heavily chromatic melodies. He comments, “What Is This Thing Called Love?,” for example, shifts dramatically between major and minor keys, and Porter fits such tonal ambiguity to a lyric of tormented bewilderment. Yet except for taking a clichéd metaphor “you took my heart” and giving it a brutal, [Lorenz] Hart-like twist, “and threw it away,” the lyric never upstages the music. Instead, Porter tries to find the lyrical equivalents for the musical chromatics – repeating the same sound with different meaning in “one wonderful day,” for example, or twisting the vowel of “saw” through “called” and “Lawd.”

After its introduction on the stage, “What Is This Thing Called Love?” quickly was taken up by jazz musicians and made part of the standard repertoire. It made its first trip to the pop charts eleven months after its debut, when a recording by Leo Reisman and His Orchestra peaked at #5 in February of 1930. Subsequently, it made five more trips to the charts: Ben Bernie and His Orchestra (1930, #10), Fred Rich and His Orchestra (1930, #19), Artie Shaw and His Orchestra (1939, #15), Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra (1942, #13), and Les Paul (1948, #11). While the song was conceived as a ballad, now it usually is performed at a fast tempo. Click here to listen to Charlie Parker’s up-tempo version recorded in 1951 at Birdland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjouVLwyzC4

Even though up-tempo versions currently are more popular, the song’s lament of love found and then lost and the heartbreaking confusion love can cause are better suited to the original ballad tempo. Click here to listen to Frank Sinatra ask the question, “What Is This Thing Called Love?”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC-vdWONIrw&feature=related

“WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE?”
By Cole Porter

VERSE
I was a humdrum person
Leading a life apart
When love flew in through my window wide
And quickened my humdrum heart.
Love flew in through my window
I was so happy then.
But after love had stayed a little while
Love flew out again.

REFRAIN
What is this thing called love?
This funny thing called love?
Just who can solve its mystery?
Why should it make a fool of me?

I saw you there one wonderful day.
You took my heart and threw it away.
That's why I ask the Lawd in Heaven above
What is this thing called love?

VERSE
You gave me days of sunshine,
You gave me nights of cheer,
You made my life an enchanted dream
'Til somebody else came near.
Somebody else came near you,
I felt the winter's chill
And now I sit and wonder night and day
Why I love you still?

Who was E.A. Swan? His name appears on sheet music for “When Your Lover Has Gone,” which was published in 1931 and recorded hundreds of times since then, but few jazz fans know anything about him. Swan’s life likely would have remained a mystery if it weren’t for the painstaking research performed by Sven Bjerstedt, a senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden. Bjerstedt's affection for the song caused him to want to learn more about its composer, Einar Aaron Swan. At www.jazzstandards.com Sandra Burlingame writes, “When he discovered that Swan’s first name was “Einar,” decidedly Scandinavian, his curiosity was further aroused. Working with genealogists, Bjerstedt tracked down family members and produced a fascinating and detailed treatise on Swan entitled A Study of Jazz Age Fame and Oblivion, available on the internet at the Swedish-Finn Historical Society.”

Bjerstedt discovered that Swan was the son of Finnish emigrants, and when he was a boy his father settled the family in Massachusetts in the Worcester area. His father, John Swan, was a musician and taught seven of his eight children to play instruments, forming a family orchestra. The orchestra became well-known in Worcester, and was featured in an article in the Worcester Telegram newspaper in 1915: “This little family orchestra has a wide reputation for musical ability in the northern part of Worcester county, as well as in Worcester, where it has appeared before large audiences. According to John M. Swan, who, while the children were little tots, decided to give them a musical education, there seems no end of their musical ability. There is hardly an instrument that any of them comes in contact with but what they are able to give a creditable performance.”

John Swan must have been especially proud of his son Einar, who was a child prodigy that played the violin at age 4 and published his first song at age 11. By the time Einar became a teenager, he was a multi-instrumentalist and could play every instrument in his high school band. Shortly after graduating from high school, he moved to New York City, and by 1925 was playing reeds with the popular Vincent Lopez Orchestra. The Worcester Telegram continued to follow his musical career, publishing articles of the “local boy makes good” variety, like the one entitled “High Up Among World’s Jazz Artists,” which began with the exclamation “A ‘JAZZ baby’ is Einor [!] Swan, once of Worcester, now of the world, and one of the biggest and blondest musicians in the business.”

In addition to playing multiple instruments, Swan was a composer, lyricist and arranger. He wrote “When Your Lover Has Gone” in 1931. It was featured in Blonde Crazy, a Warner Brothers film starring James Cagney and Joan Blondell, which had racy scenes and dialogue that would not have survived the censorship guidelines imposed a few years later. In the film Cagney plays a con man that uses his girlfriend, played by Blondell, to attract “sugar daddies” whom he then swindles out of their money. At All Movie Guide, reviewer Hal Erickson comments, “As amoral as a bagful of alley cats, Blonde Crazy is good dirty fun from Hollywood's randy pre-code era.” In the film “When Your Lover Has Gone” makes several appearances, the first time when played and sung by an unidentified tenor during the credits and again when played by an orchestra at a nightclub. Later it is used as background music when Cagney proposes to Blondell and at the film’s end.

Louis Armstrong was the first jazz artist to record “When Your Lover Has Gone,” and he was immediately followed by the leading musicians of the time, including Benny Goodman and Ethel Waters. However, the recording that reached the pop charts was by Gene Austin, a popular singer from Texas who was known as the “King of the Southland.” His rendition stayed on the charts for four weeks, peaking at #10. A decade later Billie Holiday, Harry James, Frank Sinatra and Maxine Sullivan recorded it, and in 1962 Sarah Vaughan made an up-tempo version with Count Basie. Sandra Burlingame comments, “The lovely chromaticism of “When Your Lover Has Gone” makes it appealing to vocalists and instrumentalists alike. The melody initially offers promise by moving up the scale, but then it descends to the phrase “when your lover has gone,” the musical and emotional low point of each stanza.” However, noted music critic Alec Wilder is less favorably impressed with the song. In American Popular Song, he states that it “is not my kind of song, with its incipient melodrama (and the piano copy’s dramatic format suggests the writer’s almost art song attitude), but it does have a few innovative moments....But the self-conscious “blue note” ending embarrasses me.” Despite Wilder's negative reaction to the song, it has retained its popularity with other musicians, and recently has been recorded by Jim Ferguson, Scott Hamilton, Roger Kellaway, and Stacey Kent.

What happened to Einar Swan? “When Your Lover Has Gone” was his one big songwriting hit. But, with a family to support, royalties from songwriting were not a sufficiently reliable source of income. Working as a musician and music arranger was more lucrative (he received $1,500 for his arrangement of “Stormy Weather”) and he put aside composing in favor of the greater financial security afforded by his other activities. He may have hoped to return to songwriting because, in a 1939 letter to his brother Walter, he wrote, “I’m trying to write songs, that is enough of them to get into A.S.C.A.P., so that maybe soon I can give up arranging which is very strenuous when you have to keep at it constantly.” Unfortunately, he never had the opportunity to follow his dream; in 1940 at the age of 40 he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Bjerstedt related that Frank Sinatra gave his royalties from recording “When Your Lover Has Gone” to Swan’s widow. Click here to listen to Sinatra’s heartfelt rendition of the song, which he begins with the second verse: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrVnphtSOBU

Bjerstedt ends his biography of Swan with the following: “In a 2002 interview on popular ‘standard’ songs, musician/author Max Morath was asked: “Was there a ‘one hit wonder’ composer who made the list by virtue of the strength of his or her one famous standard?” Responding to this, Morath mentions “When Your Lover Has Gone” by Einar Swan, whom he remembers as being very active in the radio and phonograph business, and he reflects on Swan’s untimely death: “Well, who knows what he might have done?”

“WHEN YOUR LOVER HAS GONE”
By E.A. Swan

VERSE #1
For ages and ages
The poets and sages
Of love wond'rous love always sing
But ask any lover
And you'll soon discover
The heartaches that romance can bring.

REFRAIN
When you're alone
Who cares for starlit skies
When you're alone
The magic moonlight dies
At break of dawn
There is no sunrise
When your lover has gone.

What lonely hours
The evening shadows bring
What lonely hours
With mem'ries lingering
Like faded flow'rs
Life can't mean anything
When your lover has gone.

VERSE #2
What good is the scheming
The planning the dreaming
That comes with each new love affair
The love that you cherish
So often may perish
And leave you with castles in air.

REPEAT REFRAIN
When you’re alone...

“After You’ve Gone” is one of the few jazz songs written before 1920 that retained its popularity into the swing era of the 1930s. Along with “St. Louis Blues” and “Indiana” (aka “Back Home Again in Indiana”), it is one of the top three pre-1920s jazz standards. The African-American songwriting team of Turner Layton and Henry Creamer wrote “After You’ve Gone” and it was their first hit. Their later hits included “Dear Old Southland” and “Way Down Yonder in new Orleans.”

As with many early jazz songs, “After You’ve Gone” made its first appearance in a vaudeville show, introduced by Al Jolson at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City. Jolson sought to promote works by black composers and playwrights. As early as 1911 he had become known for fighting racial discrimination in the Broadway theaters. At www.PBS.org an article about Broadway history states, “Almost single-handedly, Jolson helped to introduce African-American musical innovations like jazz, ragtime, and the blues to white audiences.” It goes on to comment, “Al Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock 'n' roll. Jolson had first heard African-American music in New Orleans in 1905, and he performed it for the rest of his life. Like Elvis, Jolson gyrated his lower body as he danced. In The Jazz Singer, white viewers saw Jolson moving his hips and waist in ways that they had never seen before. Historian and performer Stephen Hanan has written in Tikkun [magazine] that Jolson's “funky rhythm and below-the-waist gyrations (not seen again from any white male till the advent of Elvis) were harbingers of the sexual liberation of the new urban era. Jolson was a rock star before the dawn of rock music.” Al Jolson paved the way for African-American performers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Ethel Waters.”

After Jolson introduced “After You’ve Gone” in 1918, a number of recordings were made that year, but the most successful was by Marion Harris; her recording stayed on the pop charts for three weeks and peaked at #1. In the early 1920s Harris was a popular singer in vaudeville and Broadway shows. One of the first white women to sing blues and jazz songs, she favored songs by African-American writers. She explained her preference by saying, “You usually do best what comes naturally, so I just naturally started singing Southern dialect songs and the modern blues songs.” Harris recorded “After You’ve Gone” for the Victor Record label, but in 1920 when that label refused to allow her to record W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues,” she left the label and moved over to Columbia Records, where she did record the song, which became a hit. In his autobiography Father of the Blues, Handy wrote of her, “Marion Harris, celebrated White Blues singer, left a recording company that objected to her making a record of “St. Louis Blues.” Miss Harris had used our numbers in vaudeville for a long time, and she sang blues so well that people sometimes thought that the singer was colored.”

A 1917 recording of “When I Hear a Jazz Band Play” by Harris is credited with being the first jazz recording by a female singer at www.redhotjazz.com. However, although Harris was an early jazz pioneer, today she is largely forgotten. At Allmusic.com John Bush writes, “A hit maker who was recording before the end of World War I, Marion Harris sang a Broadway version of the blues several years before it had cracked the commercial consciousness, near the end of the 1910s. In that, she was a harbinger of the Jazz Age, although her hits dried up by the mid-'20s, and when she died in 1944 she had been long forgotten.” Tragically, she died at age 47 from burns suffered in a fire caused by her smoking a cigarette in bed. Click here to listen to her rendition of “After You’ve Gone”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA6ulKFXiTA

“After You’ve Gone” made 10 trips to the pop charts between 1918 and 1937. In addition to Harris’s version, the following recordings also charted:
Henry Burr and Albert Campbell (1918, #2)
Billy Murray and “Rachel Grant” (Gladys Rice) (1919, #9)
Bessie Smith (1927, Fletcher Henderson, piano, #7)
Sophie Tucker (1927, with Miff Mole’s Molars, #10)
Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra (1930, Bing Crosby, vocal, #14)
Louis Armstrong (1932, #15)
Benny Goodman Trio (1935, instrumental, #20)
Lionel Hampton (1937, #6)
Quintet of the Hot Club of France (1937, instrumental featuring Django Reinhardt
and Stephane Grappelli #20)

In his book American Popular Song, Alec Wilder analyzes “After You’ve Gone.” He notes, “…no chord holds for longer than a measure and in most instances only for half a measure. This fact is an instant attraction to the improviser.” He classes it as “one of the most long-lived jazz standards” and “as American as a song can get.”

“AFTER YOU’VE GONE”
By Turner Layton and Henry Creamer

VERSE
Now won't you listen honey, while I say,
How could you tell me that you're goin' away?
Don't say that we must part,
Don't break your baby's heart.

You know I've loved you for these many years,
Loved you night and day...
Oh! honey baby, can't you see my tears?
Listen while I say:

REFRAIN
After you've gone and left me cryin'
After you've gone there's no denyin'
You'll feel blue, you'll feel sad
You'll miss the dearest pal you've ever had.

There'll come a time, now don't forget it
There'll come a time when you'll regret it
Someday, when you grow lonely
Your heart will break like mine and you'll want me only
After you've gone, after you've gone away.

After you've gone and left me cryin'
After you've gone there's no denyin'
You're gonna feel blue, and you're gonna feel sad
You're gonna feel bad
And you'll miss, and you'll miss,
And you'll miss the dearest pal you ever had

There'll come a time, now don't forget it
There'll come a time when you'll regret it
But baby, think what you're doin'
I'm gonna haunt you so, I'm gonna taunt you so
It's gonna drive you to ruin
After you've gone, after you've gone away.

As we bid farewell to the first decade of this century, Songs of the Week for January will feature jazz standards with a goodbye theme. The song for this week, one of the most recorded songs about parting, most aptly is titled “Goodbye.” In 1935 Benny Goodman and His Orchestra introduced the song on a radio program and first recorded it on the RCA Victor Records label. The next year his recording reached the pop charts, peaking at #20. Goodman made “Goodbye” his theme song and his band played it at the end of every concert.

Over the last seventy-five years “Goodbye” has been recorded by hundreds of musicians, but it still remains most closely associated with Benny Goodman. Herb Caen, a well-known columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and a friend of Goodman, provides insight into why Goodman’s playing of “Goodbye” had such a powerful effect on his audience. After Goodman’s death in 1986, Caen wrote in his newspaper column that Goodman’s concerts were “…bedlam. Gene Krupa riding his high hat like a dervish. Harry James puffing out his cheeks till surely they must burst, the rhythm always burning and churning and driving you out of your mind, and then, just when you thought nothing could get hotter, Benny’s clarinet rising like a burnished bird out of the tightly controlled maelstrom and soaring to the heavens, out screaming even the crowd. Orgasmic, yes. And then, after all the hours that went too fast, the plaintive melody of ‘Goodbye,’ and the audience, spent, filing out reluctantly in a sort of post-coital depression.”

Gordon Jenkins, who wrote the music and lyrics for “Goodbye,” was a performer, composer, arranger and bandleader. While writing a biography of his father entitled Goodbye: In Search of Gordon Jenkins, Bruce Jenkins researched the history of “Goodbye.” He knew that his father had written the song in the early 1930s, when he was about 21 years old and working for Isham Jones, the leader of a popular dance band. Jones declared the song to be too sad and didn’t want it. Bruce Jenkins describes in the book how the song then came to Benny Goodman: “In the meantime Gor [Jenkins’ name for his father] had become quite friendly with Goodman, socializing and playing tennis with him quite regularly in New York. “We used to hang around my Tudor City apartment, playing records and whatever, and he told me he was going to get his own band together for the ‘Let’s Dance’ radio program [1934],” Gor said in a radio interview years later. “I helped him get some guys and he asked me if I had anything he could use for a theme song. So we’re sitting there having a drink, fooling around with stuff, and I started playing ‘Goodbye.’ I played a couple of bars and it was like the movies: Benny said, ‘That’s it. That’s the one!’”

Bruce Jenkins began writing the biography after his father’s death from Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1984. Since he had not questioned his father about his musical career when he was alive, Jenkins had to use interviews and other secondary source materials to obtain information. As part of his research, he interviewed Martha Tilton, a former singer with the Goodman band, and found there was more to the story of how “Goodbye” had come to be written than he was aware. When he asked her about “Goodbye,” she verified that the song wasn’t written for Goodman. Instead, it was about something that had happened a long time ago, before Gordon was married, and he had told her about it himself, but she refused to say more. The mystery tantalized Bruce for months, and he tried to find the answer from other musicians and associates of his father, but no one seemed to know anything more about “Goodbye.” Finally he contacted Tilton’s husband, Jim Brooks, who was willing to tell him the story: “What happened, Jim told me, was that a very long time ago, my father had fallen deeply in love with someone, and before they really knew what was happening, she was pregnant. ‘In those days,’ Jim said, ‘it was pretty much understood that if you got a girl pregnant you’d marry her.’ On the day of the birth, both mother and child died.” The story adds extra poignancy to the song’s lyrics that begin with the line “I’ll never forget you…”

Whether or not Alec Wilder knew the story behind “Goodbye,” he still picked up on its melancholy nature. In American Popular Song, he said, “‘Goodbye’ is as sad a song as I know….Note how the second statement takes on the quality of a lonely echo of the first. This is a very beautiful song.” The song was the first of Gordon Jenkins’ compositions to make the Hit Parade, and is the most recorded song he wrote. Benny Goodman, who recorded it first, played the song primarily as an instrumental, and didn’t make a vocal recording until 1955 with Rosemary Clooney. Click here to listen to Benny Goodman’s instrumental rendition of “Goodbye”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GKbDSu9Xd0 In 1938 the first vocal recording of the song was made by Andy Kirk’s band with singer Pha Terrell.

Jenkins was known for his sentimental songs with lush string orchestrations. At www.jazzstandards.com well-known DJ Dale Young gives testimony to the sentimental punch of “Goodbye”: “As a DJ in Detroit in ‘59, I played a promo copy of Sinatra’s ”Only The Lonely” while waiting for my wife to get dressed to go out. By the time she hit the living room, “Goodbye” was finishing, and she found me absolutely blubbering. Several years later on my own TV show in Cleveland I got to meet and interview Gordon Jenkins. When I asked him if he was truly as sentimental as some of his compositions would suggest, he replied, “Are you kidding? I cry at weather reports!” Frank Sinatra had included “Goodbye” on one of his most famous albums, Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely. When he made the album in 1958, his divorce from Ava Gardner had just become final and may have provided the motivation to record a collection of melancholic ballads about sadness and loss. The album proved to be immensely popular, reaching #1 on Billboard’s pop album chart and staying for a 120-week run. Click here to listen to the rendition of “Goodbye” that moved Young to tears: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUNx2i8vqeI

“GOODBYE”
By Gordon Jenkins

I’ll never forget you
I’ll never forget you
I’ll never forget how we promised one day
To love one another forever that way
We said we’d never say
Goodbye
But that was long ago
Now you’ve forgotten, I know
No use to wonder why
Let’s say farewell with a sigh
Let love die
But we’ll go on living
Our own way of living
So you take the high road
And I’ll take the low
It’s time that we parted
It’s much better so
But kiss me as you go
Goodbye