The song "As Time Goes By" and the film Casablanca are inextricably intertwined; it is nearly impossible to think of one without the other. That wasn’t always so. "As Time Goes By" was written in 1931, eleven years before Casablanca debuted. That year the song appeared in a modestly successful Broadway play, Everybody’s Welcome, and crooner Rudy Vallee’s recording reached fifteenth place on the pop charts. After that, the song was virtually forgotten and its composer, Herman Hupfeld, moved on to other musicals. In the 1930s he was better known for his novelty song, "When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba."

"As Time Goes By" wasn’t forgotten by Murray Burnett, a student at Cornell University in 1931 and future playwright-to-be, who purchased the Vallee recording and wore it out. In 1938, while vacationing on the French Rivera, he heard "As Time Goes By" played by a black pianist at a nightclub that was frequented by the French, Nazis and refugees, La Belle Aurora. Struck by the juxtaposition of the nightclub scene with the atmosphere of pre-war Europe, after returning home he co-wrote with Joan Alison a play entitled Everybody Comes to Rick’s. In the play, Rick Blaine, the hard-bitten and cynical bar owner of a nightclub in Casablanca, Morocco, helps an idealistic Czech resistance fighter, Victor Lazlo, escape from the Nazis with the woman Rick loves, Ilsa Lund.

Burnett was unsuccessful in getting the play produced on Broadway, and eventually sold it to Warner Brothers for $20,000. In 1942, producer Hal Wallis, with the assistance of several script writers, turned it into the screenplay for Casablanca. He hired Max Steiner to score the film; Steiner already had a notable reputation for his scores for King Kong and Gone with the Wind. Humphrey Bogart played Rick, his first role as the romantic lead, Ingrid Bergman played Ilsa, and Paul Henreid, who actually was a refugee from Nazified Europe, played Victor Lazlo. Sam, the piano player at Rick’s Café Americain, was played by Dooley Wilson. Wilson was a singer, actor and drummer, but not a piano player. Although he did his own singing in the film, his piano playing had to be dubbed. When the notoriety he received for his Casablanca role led to guest appearances later on, Wilson was surprised when he was expected to play the piano as well as sing. The role of Sam was the subject of one of the most famous misquotes in film history, "Play it again, Sam." That line appears no where in the film; the actual line, uttered by Rick to Sam, is, "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!" The closest any line in the film comes to that is delivered by Ilsa when she asks Sam to play the song, "Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By’."

In the script for the original play Burnett specified that when Ilsa first enters Rick’s bar, she asks the piano player to play "As Time Goes By". Burnett insisted that the song be retained in the film version, but Steiner wasn’t partial to it and wanted it replaced with one of his own compositions. The song was saved by a haircut. The film, including the scenes in which the song was played, already had been shot and Bergman had moved on to her next film, for which her hair had been cut very short. Wallis did not want to invest in a wig for Bergman and re-shoot the scenes to assuage his music director’s ego, so the song stayed. Steiner became reconciled to the song and used it as the leitmotif of the film.

Casablanca was one of dozens of anti-Nazi propaganda films that Hollywood produced during World War II. It had an international cast, many of whom had fled the Nazis. In addition to Paul Henreid, other cast members who were refugees included Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, S. Z. Sakall, Curt Bois and Marcel Dalio. Ironically, a number of them, including Conrad Veidt in the role of Major Strasser, had to play Nazis in the film. The film was rushed into release in late November of 1942 to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier and was not expected to be anything extraordinary. However, it was a solid success in its initial run and won three Academy Awards in 1943, including Best Picture.

"As Time Goes By" was not eligible for an Oscar because it had not been written specifically for the film. There is no evidence that Hupfeld was perturbed by his song’s ineligibility for an Oscar. He likely was ecstatic that a song he had written 12 years earlier was receiving so much attention. Because of the 1942-1943 American Federation of Musicians recording ban, Vallee’s 1931 recording was re-released, and reached first place on the Billboard charts in the spring of 1943, where it stayed for four weeks. It received frequent radio play and was on Your Hit Parade from February to May of 1943. Interestingly, in the film Wilson never sings the song all the way through. He did record a full version of the song after the recording ban was lifted in late 1943, but the timing of the recording caused it to not make a dent in the pop charts. The song’s verse was not used in the film and since then singers rarely have included it in recordings.

While "As Time Goes By" had widespread popularity in the 1940s, it wasn’t until the 1950s, when singers began including it on long-play albums and Casablanca began appearing on television and making regular reappearances in theaters like the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA, that the song became a jazz standard and Casablanca achieved icon status as one of the greatest films of all time. What makes the song great besides being the linchpin of an iconic film? Will Friedwald, in his book Stardust Melodies, provides an assessment of the song’s success, "Harmonically, the song is neither as interesting as "My Funny Valentine," as challenging as "Body and Soul," or as useful to musicians as "I Got Rhythm." The chords are no more interesting than they need to be. The harmony is sufficient but not spectacular, which explains why "As Time Goes By" hasn’t received as much instrumental jazz attention as the above three songs. No, it isn’t the harmony that makes "As Time Goes By" a great song, it’s the melody and the lyrics. ….It’s been seventy years since "As Time Goes By" was released, and, old-fashioned as it sounds, the world still is welcoming lovers. They may not be traditional lovers circa 1931, they might be men with long hair, women in pants, or they even might be of the same sex, as Hupfeld’s own loves seem to have been. But love goes on, and it’s still the only thing that will redeem us all. And that, my friends, is something no one can deny."

''AS TIME GOES BY''
By Herman Hupfeld

VERSE
This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension
Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr. Einstein's theory,
So we must get down to earth at times
Relax relieve the tension
And no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed.

CHORUS
You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

And when two lovers woo
They still say, I love you
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.

Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny.

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.

Most jazz fans easily could compile a list of their top ten jazz songs with a Christmas theme, but just ask them to do the same for New Year’s Eve. They likely would have trouble compiling a list of ten songs about the holiday, period. Jazz composers seem to have ignored New Year’s Eve as an inspiration for songwriting and jazz musicians would rather be playing on New Year’s Eve than writing about it. The exception is Frank Loesser, who composed the music and lyrics for "What Are you Doing New Year’s Eve?" - the only notable jazz standard with a New Year’s Eve theme.

Loesser was a prolific songwriter who wrote for Hollywood and Broadway. Initially he worked as a lyricist collaborating with various composers, but his greatest successes occurred after he became his own collaborator, writing both the words and the music. The first song he wrote entirely was the 1942 wartime hit, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." Other jazz standards he wrote included "On a Slow Boat to China" and "Baby, It’s Cold Outside," for which he won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Song. However, Loesser wanted "to create situations" rather than songs. He said, "Songwriting is a little thing and I settled for a big thing." The "big thing" to which he referred was Broadway musicals. His first attempt, "Where’s Charley?" in 1948, ran for over two years and surprised doubters who thought he couldn’t write a successful integrated score on his first try. He went on to write four more musicals, including "Guys and Dolls," "Most Happy Fella," and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." After he began writing for Broadway, Loesser never again wrote single songs like "What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?"

Although the first recording of "What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?" isn’t verified, the November 1949 recording by the Orioles, a Rhythm and Blues vocal group of five singers, was likely the first to appear in the pop charts. It reached ninth place on the charts and stayed there for two weeks. Although the Orioles are virtually unknown today, by 1950 they were the most popular R&B vocal group in the country. Beginning in 1948 they had a string of hits that reached the R&B and pop charts, including "Tell Me So" and Crying in the Chapel." Their first hit, "It’s Too Soon to Know," reached first place on the R&B charts in 1948, but more surprisingly, reached thirteenth place on the pop charts, something that most "race ballads" didn’t do at that time.

The Orioles were one of the first black vocal groups to successfully crossover to white audiences. Tenor Sonny Til, leader of the Orioles, had this to say about their fan base: "I think we were aimed at the Negro market. I think that’s the way it was because at the time you had the colored records, race records, and you know, it was a different thing. Like you have soul music now. Soul music can be white or black. Then, the race music was black music by black artists. Although we were on the Negro market, we had quite a few white fans. I was surprised when we played mixed places. Then down south we played places with the white people upstairs and the colored people downstairs, or vise-versa. In the fifties, it was very nice to know we had mixed fans." - from Marv Goldberg’s R&B Notebooks – The Orioles

The Orioles have been characterized as harmonic pioneers. They differed from singing groups like the Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers in that they provided vocal music accompanied by a solo guitar and a bass rather than a large backup band. Accompanying a lead vocal with a wordless falsetto, an innovation they popularized, would later become a key ingredient of the doo wop style. They inspired a generation of black musicians and their breakthrough led to the formation of more vocal groups who adopted bird names and sang in a similar style: the Penguins, the Flamingos, the Falcons and the Robins (later the Coasters).

"What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?" now is more closely associated with Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis, and its initial trip to the charts with the Orioles is mostly forgotten. Recent recordings include those by Diana Krall and Harry Connick, Jr., and Ella Fitzgerald made a memorable cover of the song in 1960.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEW YEAR’S EVE?"
by Frank Loesser

Maybe it’s much too early in the game
Ah, but I thought I’d ask you just the same
What are you doing New Year’s
New Year’s Eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it’s exactly twelve o’clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year
New Year’s Eve

Maybe I’m crazy to suppose
I’d ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations
You’d receive

Ah, but in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance
What are you doing New Year’s
New Year’s Eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it’s exactly twelve o’clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year
New Year’s Eve

What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

In the late 1930s Irving Berlin initially conceived "White Christmas" as the first-act finale of a vaudeville-style Broadway revue featuring skits ranging from juggling acrobats to trained dogs. Jody Rosen, in his book White Christmas, the Story of an American Song (Scribner 2002), describes Berlin’s original intent for the song: "It is difficult to imagine the "White Christmas" we know today as showstopper in a revue filled with dog tricks and pratfalls. Yet the song that reached the world in 1942 as a hymn was, in its inventor’s initial conception, something else entirely: wry, parodic, lighthearted – a novelty tune. We glimpse Berlin’s original vision for "White Christmas" in the six lines of its verse. Where the chorus evokes a distant yesteryear (the Christmases "I used to know"), the verse is set in the modern present: on Christmas Eve Day in Los Angeles. …According to biographer Philip Furia, Berlin pictured it being performed by "a group of sophisticates gathered around a Hollywood pool," pining for a rustic, snowbound Christmas with "cocktails in hand" – a preposterous tableau sure to tickle New York audiences." Rosen goes on to say that "Berlin had little idea that beneath his Christmas-in-Beverly-Hills Lampoon – stirring in the homesick ‘longing’ of the verse’s last line – the Great American Christmas Carol was waiting to emerge."

The Broadway revue was never produced, but Berlin clearly liked the song and finished it in 1940. In the meantime, he had developed a different vision for how he would use the song. In 1941 he convinced Paramount Pictures to do a "holiday" musical, Holiday Inn, in which the major holidays would be celebrated with a song. Paramount saw the film as a vehicle for its current musical star, Bing Crosby, and agreed to produce it. The plot was slim; Bing Crosby played a homespun character who saved his money and bought a Connecticut farm. When he couldn’t make a success of farming, he decided to turn the farm into an inn that would be open only on holidays. Berlin wrote the film score that included eleven new songs for the various holidays, but he still considered "White Christmas" to be his showpiece. Shortly after he completed it, he said, "Not only is it the best song I ever wrote, it’s the best song anybody ever wrote." In Holiday Inn "White Christmas" was transformed from a comedic parody to a tender ballad that was introduced as a love duet between Crosby and the female costar, Marjorie Reynolds. In May of 1942 Crosby made a recording of the film score on the Decca Records label.

Holiday Inn was released in August 1942 and was an immediate success, becoming the highest grossing film musical to date. However, the recording of the film score, and "White Christmas" especially, had not received much attention from the critics or fans. Berlin was disappointed with the response to the score and decided to push it with radio executives and bandleaders. He chose "Be Careful with My Heart", the film’s Valentine’s Day tune, as the first song to plug, and his efforts paid off with it entering the Hit Parade when Holiday Inn premiered. However, it didn’t reach first place and was never a smash hit. Unexpectedly, in September of 1942, without any plugging, "White Christmas" started to climb in the charts and by October 1942 Billboard magazine called it "one of the most phenomenal hits in the music business." The reason for its popularity was that Crosby’s Decca recording had reached American troops overseas via Armed Forces Radio, jukeboxes in USO halls and PX stores. For GIs from North Africa to Guadalcanal, "White Christmas" was a nostalgic reminder of what they were fighting for and it became the anthem of World War II. Crosby made frequent trips overseas to entertain the troops and, no matter the season, he was always asked to sing "White Christmas."

The popularity of "White Christmas" spread from the war front to the home front. Bing Crosby’s Decca recording entered the Hit Parade in November of 1942 and held first place for ten consecutive weeks. It re-entered the charts every December for the next twenty years. It also won the 1942 Academy Award for Best Song. Crosby’s recording, still the signature version of the song, has sold over 31 million copies. He began "White Christmas" with the chorus and did not sing the satirical introductory verse in either the film or on the recording. In December of 1942, when Berlin realized that the introductory verse was out of synch with the aura of tender nostalgia that the chorus generated, he demanded that the verse no longer be included in published sheet music. Crosby’s "White Christmas" was unseated from its place as all-time top selling single only by Sir Elton John’s "Candle in the Wind ’97," his tribute to Princess Diana. However, additional millions of Crosby’s recording have been sold as part of albums.

Most of us think we know "White Christmas" only too well, but Jody Rosen recommends that the next time we hear "White Christmas," we should open our ears and our minds. He says, "Familiarity has made "White Christmas" remote: we know the song so well that we barely know it all. Bing Crosby begins singing, and we hum along, or flee the room; in any case, our ears are closed. But listen again: "White Christmas" is an oddity, whose melody meanders chromatically and is filled with unexpected moments, somber near-dissonances. Strangest of all is the song’s underlying sadness, its wistful ache for the bygone, which – in contrast to chirpy seasonal standards like "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town" – marks "White Christmas" as the darkest, bluest tune ever to masquerade as a Christmas carol."

"WHITE CHRISTMAS"
by Irving Berlin

VERSE
The sun is shining, the grass is green,
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day
In Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the twenty-fourth,
And I'm longing to be up north.

CHORUS
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know,
Where the treetops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write:
"May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white."

"The Christmas Song" was written on a sweltering day in July of 1945 by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells. Tormé, in his autobiography It Wasn’t All Velvet, describes the series of coincidences that led to its creation. "One excessively hot afternoon, I drove out to Bob's house [Robert Wells] in Toluca Lake for a work session. The San Fernando Valley, always at least ten degrees warmer than the rest of the town, blistered in the July sun.... I opened the front door and walked in.... I called for Bob. No answer. I walked over to the piano. A writing pad rested on the music board. Written in pencil on the open page were four lines of verse:
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sun by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos.
When Bob finally appeared, I asked him about the little poem. He was dressed sensibly in tennis shorts and a white T-shirt, but he still looked uncomfortably warm. "It was so damn hot today," he said, "I thought I'd write something to cool myself off. All I could think of was Christmas and cold weather." I took another look at his handiwork. "You know," I said, "this just might make a song." We sat down together at the piano, and, improbable though it may sound, "The Christmas Song" was completed about forty-five minutes later."

Tormé and Wells played the song for Nat King Cole, who liked it immediately. However, he didn’t get into the studio to record it until 1946. The first recording was made with his King Cole Trio in June of 1946. The second recording, which was the first record release, was made with a small string section at Cole’s insistence over the objections of his record label, Capitol Records. The record was released in November of 1946 and became an immediate hit. Prior to that recording, Cole was best known as a jazz pianist. He had led a jazz trio since 1937 and its first mainstream hit was a jazz tune, "Straighten Up and Fly Right" in 1943. "The Christmas Song," along with "For Sentimental Reasons," transformed Cole from a swinging jazz pianist to one of the greatest of pop balladeers. He went on to record hit ballads like "Mona Lisa" and "Unforgettable."

Mel Tormé was a musical prodigy who began performing at age four and began writing songs at age thirteen; he wrote over 300 songs in his lifetime. Jody Rosen at www.salon.com described him as "...a musical polymath: In addition to singing and writing songs, he was a fine pianist, a hard-swinging drummer in the mold of his longtime friend Buddy Rich and an accomplished arranger who fashioned musical settings for his songs that were as stylish, subtle and gracefully colored as his vocals." Tormé composed "The Christmas Song" at age nineteen and it is his best known composition. It also is known under its first line, "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire." Tormé was fond of recalling that there were over 1700 recordings of the song. Nat King Cole’s 1946 recording still is considered the definitive version and it was inducted into the Grammy hall of Fame in 1974.

For decades, Irving Berlin’s "White Christmas", written in 1940, had topped the ASCAP list of most recorded Christmas songs. However, in 2003 "The Christmas Song" took over first place and has remained there ever since. William Studwell, in his book The Christmas Carol Reader, describes the reason for its enduring popularity, "To call any song "The Christmas Song" as if there were no others may seem to be a bit arrogant. But in line with the old saying "If it's true, it isn't bragging," the 1946 ballad fits quite well with the title chosen for it. The smooth, sentimental, even beautiful carol by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells is as fine an impression of the positive nature, friendliness, and spirituality of Christmas ever managed by an entirely secular song."

THE CHRISTMAS SONG
(Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)
by Mel Tormé & Robert Wells

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,
Jack Frost nipping at your nose,
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,

Help to make the season bright.
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know that Santa's on his way;
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.
And every mother's child is going to spy,
To see if reindeer really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,
To kids from one to ninety-two,
Although its been said many times, many ways,
Merry Christmas to you.

Composer Matt Dennis wasn’t happy with the title of the song that he and his lyricist, Earl Brent, had just written: "Have Another Beer on Me’’ didn’t sound right. Brent changed the song’s title to "Angel Eyes" and a saloon ballad to rival "One for My Baby" was born.

Although one of the most covered jazz standards now, "Angel Eyes" had some bad breaks when it was first recorded. Dennis credited Ella Fitzgerald with popularizing the song. He recalled "I wrote it in 1947 and had a hell of a time getting it going, even with monumental starts. First, Herb Jeffries did it, but the (record) company folded. Then Nat Cole did it and I was in seventh heaven, but it got lost because it was on the flip side of a hit called ‘Return to Paradise.’ Finally, Ella (Fitzgerald) recorded it for (producer) Norman Granz. She's done it four times since. I'm thrilled because she's always included it in her shows." Fitzgerald first recorded the song in 1952 with Sy Oliver and his Orchestra and often described it as one of her favorite songs; another favorite of hers was "Something to Live For." A New York Times article speculated, "Because both songs are sad, they hint at feelings that Fitzgerald kept mostly to herself, since she infused everything she performed with a sense of joy and almost heavenly confidence." Dennis himself was another early performer of "Angel Eyes"; he recorded it for the soundtrack of the 1953 film Jennifer, a creepy gothic thriller starring Ida Lupino and Howard Duff.

"Angel Eyes" was the only hit produced by the songwriting team of Dennis and Earl Brent. Dennis, along with his chief collaborator, lyricist Thomas Adair, wrote several other jazz standards, including "Let’s Get Away From It All," "Everything Happens to Me," Violets for Your Furs," and "The Night We Called It a Day." Alex Wilder in American Popular Songs has this to say about Dennis: "He was, in fact, much more than a composer. He was a pianist, a singer, and I first began to hear about him when Tommy Dorsey hired him as an arranger-composer, an assignment I have never heard of again, except for Billy Strayhorn’s work with Duke Ellington." The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, in which Frank Sinatra was the vocalist, recorded many Dennis compositions. Although lyricist Brent now is known primarily for writing the lyrics to "Angel Eyes," in the 1940s he wrote songs for many film scores.

After Frank Sinatra had become a solo performer, he recorded "Angel Eyes" on his legendary 1958 album Frank Sinatra Sings For Only the Lonely. His rendition has been called the definitive version of the song, and today the song is most closely associated with him. He excelled at singing drinking songs and claimed, "Being a saloon singer, that’s my racket." His treatment of "Angel Eyes" displayed the master in peak form. Instead of beginning "Angel Eyes" at the chorus, as do most singers, he began at the release, "So drink up all you people", which proved to be very effective and moving. In 1971 Sinatra announced his retirement at age 55, and began his series of farewell concerts. He closed these concerts with "Angel Eyes", exiting the stage after singing the last line, "Excuse me while I disappear." Despite this dramatic finale, Sinatra didn’t stay retired, returning to the stage in 1973 and continuing to perform and record until 1995.

"ANGEL EYES"
by Matt Dennis and Earl Brent

VERSE
Have you ever had the feeling
That the world's gone and left you behind
Have you ever had the feeling
That you're that close to loosing your mind
You look around each corner
Hoping that she's there
You try to play it cool perhaps
Pretend that you don't care
But it doesn't do a bit of good
You got to seek 'til you find
Or you never unwind

CHORUS
Try to think
That loves not around
Still it's uncomfortably near
My old heart
Ain't gainin' no ground
Because my angel eyes ain't here

Angel eyes
That old devil sent
They glow unbearably bright
Need I say
That my love's misspent
Misspent with angel eyes tonight

So drink up all you people
Order anything you see
Have fun you happy people
You drink and the laugh's on me

Pardon me
But I "gotta run"
The fact's uncommonly clear
Gotta find
Who's now "Number One"
And why my angel eyes ain't here

Tell me why my angel eyes ain't here
Excusez-moi my angel eyes ain't here
Excuse me while I disappear

In the depths of the Great Depression one of the most aggressively cheerful of jazz standards made its debut: "I’ve Got the World on a String." Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler wrote it for the Cotton Club Parade of 1932 revue. Allen Forte, in his book Listening to Classic American Popular Songs, said, "The mood of this joyous song stands in marked contrast to the situation that prevailed in the United States at the time it was composed and performed, a situation that affected almost everyone, excluding, perhaps, a select group that no doubt included the patrons of the Cotton Club and its proprietors." From 1930 to 1934 Arlen and Koehler wrote songs for four revues at the Cotton Club, and each show had outstanding songs that went on to become hits, a remarkable achievement. "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", "I Love a Parade," and "Stormy Weather" were among the several stellar songs they wrote for Cotton Club shows.

The Cotton Club was located in the heart of Harlem at the corner of Lenox Avenue and 142nd Street and in the 1920s and 1930s it was the most famous nightclub in New York City, if not the world. Arlen and Koehler's employer and the club owner was mobster Owen "Oweny" Madden. While serving a 9-year sentence in Sing Sing for manslaughter, he acquired the club in 1923 to use as a distribution center for his bootleg beer and other alcoholic beverages. George "Big Frenchy" DeMange managed the club and was expected to be present and visible because the gangsters were part of the attraction. Madden spared no expense to create an exclusive, uptown destination for wealthy white clientele who wished to be titillated by racy shows with black performers. The interior of the club has been described as "a brazen riot of African jungle motifs, Southern stereotypology, and lurid eroticism." Patrons in evening dress, whom Arlen dubbed "The Mink Set", arrived in limousines and taxis. The club’s high tone was rigorously enforced; a mink or top hat didn’t prevent a customer from being escorted from the club for boisterous behavior or loud conversation.

Madden was a shrewd business man whose seemingly paradoxical introduction of a strict color line into the heart of Harlem with his whites-only admission policy was key in creating the Cotton Club's exclusive atmosphere. The color line extended to the club’s employees also; white gangsters ran the club, whites from Broadway produced, wrote, and choreographed its shows, and blacks cooked, waited, bussed tables, and entertained. Steven Watson, in his book Harlem Renaissance, describes how this strict segregationist policy contributed to the success of the club. "...it was precisely the club's racist policy which made it the most comfortable stop for a first-timer to Harlem; one could view the black-white maelstrom without actually descending into it. From the touristic vantage point of a table filled with white customers, the prefabricated exoticism neatly choreographed on a proscenium stage a few yards away was anything but threatening. The Cotton Club was not the only Harlem club that catered to white audiences, but it was the largest, featured the most extravagant shows, charged the highest prices, and had most strictly enforced the color line. ...Black performers did not mix with the club's clientele... "It isn't necessary to mix with colored people if you don't feel like it," Jimmy Durante comforted the squeamish. The Cotton Club allowed the timid and well-heeled to cautiously dip their stylishly shod feet into the roiling waters of primitive Uptown."

The Cotton Club did indeed seem to have "the world on a string" during the early years of the depression, but the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and the increasingly visible poverty of Harlem eventually created insurmountable problems for it and other mob-run uptown clubs. The club moved to midtown Manhattan in 1936, but high midtown rents, the rising cost of elaborate floor shows, changing tastes in jazz, and renewed federal attention to income tax evasion among New York's nightclubs caused the Cotton Club to close permanently in 1940.

The Cotton Club boosted the careers of many black entertainers, including Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the bands of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Jimmie Lunceford. Calloway’s band was featured in the 1932 revue, and he was the first to record "I’ve Got the World on a String." It rose to eighteenth on the pop charts that year. In 1933 a recording by Bing Crosby with the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra peaked at nineteenth place on the charts. Louis Armstrong made a notable cover of the song that year as well. Later on, the song became associated with Frank Sinatra, and his 1953 recording with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra reached fourteenth place on the pop charts. "I’ve Got the World on a String" continues to be recorded by a new generation of jazz musicians, including Michael Bublé, Diana Krall and Robin McKell.

I’ve Got the World on a String
by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler

Verse
Merry month of May,
Sunny skies are blue,
Clouds have rolled away
And the sun peeps through,
May express happiness,
Joy you may define
In a thousand ways,
But a case like mine
Needs a "special phrase"
To reveal how I feel.

Refrain
I've got the world on a string,
Sittin’ on a rainbow,
Got the string around my finger,
What a world, what a life,
I'm in love!

I've got a song that I sing,
I can make the rain go,
Any time I move my finger,
Lucky me, can't you see,
I'm in love.

Life's a beautiful thing,
As long as I hold the string,
I'd be a silly so-and-so,
If I should ever let go.

I've got the world on a string,
Sittin’ on a rainbow,
Got the string around my finger,
What a world, what a life,
I'm in love!

In the RKO musical comedy Swing Time, Fred Astaire, accompanying himself, sings “The Way You Look Tonight” to Ginger Rodgers while she is in another room shampooing her hair. Charmed by his declaration of love, she emerges from the bathroom in an old robe and stands behind him at the piano, forgetting that her head is covered in soapsuds (actually whipped cream from the RKO commissary). As he sings the last line, “Just the way you look tonight,” he turns and is startled to see her there with her lather-covered head. When she realizes how she must look, she flees from the room in embarrassment, providing an amusing end to a romantic moment, a frequent occurrence in an Astaire/Rodgers film. Swing Time was the sixth of ten Astaire and Rodgers musicals, and is considered by many to be their best. The film was a commercial success and “The Way You Look Tonight” won the 1936 Academy Award for Best Song, beating out stiff competition that included Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under my Skin.”

Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields were in top form when they composed the score for Swing Time. In addition to the romantic ballad “The Way You Look Tonight,” the score included two other hits, “A Fine Romance” and “Pick Yourself Up.” For the 1930s Kern and Fields were an odd couple songwriting team. Kern was 20 years older than Fields and generally recognized as the father of American musical theater. Between 1904 and 1939 he contributed to 113 shows, a record that remains unmatched by any other composer. On Broadway Kern had collaborated with outstanding lyricists Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, but when he moved from New York to Hollywood seeking work during the Great Depression, he began working with Fields. At that time Fields was virtually the only successful female songwriter. She was 30 years old when she began working with Kern, but in her twenties she had already produced such hits as “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love (Baby)” and “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” By the time she began working with Kern, her reputation as a top lyricist was established and she was in demand. William Zinsser, in his book Easy to Remember, had this to say about their working relationship: “The young lyricist drew out of the famously intractable older composer a score of unusual zest.”

“The Way You Look Tonight” has no verse, which is not unusual in songs Kern wrote for films, but it is
a long song at 44-bars. When Fields first heard the music, reportedly she recalled, “The first time Jerry played that melody for me I went out and started to cry. The release absolutely killed me. I couldn't stop, it was so beautiful.” Some jazz standards, like “Caravan” and “On Green Dolphin Street,” are performed more frequently as instrumentals because their lyrics are considered inferior to their melodies. However, with “The Way You Look Tonight,” it could have been just the opposite – Fields’ superb lyrics could have outshone the melody. Allen Forte in his book Listening to Classic American Popular Songs says, “In Jerome Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight” we are again confronted with the issue of music versus word. Which mode of expression is the more powerful? Certainly Dorothy Field’s lyrics are virtually perfect, beautifully calibrated to the melody.… In the presence of these beautifully crafted poetic lyrics, Kern’s melody holds its own primarily, I feel, because of its extraordinarily simple trajectories. It is the melody that conforms to the lyrics, not the reverse.”

Dorothy Fields said, “A song must move the story ahead. A song must take the place of dialogue. If a song halts the show, pushes it back, stalls it, the audience won't buy it; they'll be unhappy.” “The Way You Look Tonight” must have made audiences very happy because shortly after the release of Swing Time in 1936, a recording by Fred Astaire peaked at first place on “Your Hit Parade”, where it remained for six weeks. That same year recordings by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians and the Teddy Wilson Orchestra with Billie Holiday also reached the pop charts, both peaking at third place. Later the song became closely associated with Frank Sinatra, and other notable covers include ones by Ray Charles, Benny Goodman with Peggy Lee, Lionel Hampton and Steve Tyrell. In addition to becoming a jazz standard, it also has become a wedding standard and appeared on the sound track of as least a dozen films. It provided background music for soap operas and rock star Sir Elton John incorporated its title in a song he wrote, “Something About The Way You Look Tonight.”

“All this attention notwithstanding, “The Way You Look Tonight” has retained its purity as a beautiful love song. For this we can thank both Kern and his extraordinary lyricist, Dorothy Fields.” – Allen Forte

“The Way You Look Tonight”
by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields

Some day when I'm awfully low,
When the world is cold,
I will feel a glow just thinking of you,
And the way you look tonight.

Oh, but you’re lovely,
With your smile so warm
And your cheek so soft,
There is nothing for me
but to love you,
Just the way you look tonight.

With each word your tenderness grows,
Tearing my fear apart,
And that laugh that wrinkles your nose
Touches my foolish heart.

Lovely, never, never change,
Keep that breathless charm,
Won't you please arrange it,
'Cause I love you,
Just the way you look tonight
Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-
Just the way you look tonight.

When "Begin the Beguine" debuted in Cole Porter’s musical comedy Jubilee in 1935, it was the longest popular song ever written at 108 bars. The conventional length for a song is 32 bars. Moss Hart wrote the book for Jubilee, and on hearing the extraordinarily long song for the first time, said "I thought it had ended when he was halfway through." The beguine of the title refers to a dance that was developed on the islands of Martinique, Cuba, and Guadeloupe in the 1930s. It is similar to a rumba, but slower, with dance moves performed smoothly and deliberately. Like many Latin dances, the beguine emphasizes the ability to roll the hips to evoke sensuality while performing the steps. Though now the beguine is one of the more obscure dances in the Latin ballroom dance tradition, it was popular in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.

Porter wrote "Begin the Beguine" while on a luxury cruise. There are at least a couple of different versions of his inspiration for the music. In one version, at a stop in Martinique he first heard the beguine, but other sources report that he said he discovered the beguine in Paris at a dance hall frequented by immigrants from Martinique. In any event, he adopted the beguine rhythm for a big production number for Jubilee and matched his lyrics to the music. Quoting Philip Furia and Michael Lasser in their book America’s Songs: "Porter, whose lyrics always pushed against the boundaries of popular taste, suggests that the dance is the equivalent of lovemaking, but to avoid censorship he changed the penultimate line from "And we suddenly know the sweetness of sin" to the benign "And we suddenly know what heaven we’re in." Jubilee ran for only 169 performances, but reportedly Porter was unperturbed by the show’s lack of success. He was annoyed that people preferred "Begin the Beguine" to another song in the show, "Just One of Those Things," because he had not expected "Beguine" to be a hit.

"Begin the Beguine" enjoyed modest popularity early on; a recording by Xavier Cugat and his Waldorf Astoria Orchestra peaked at #13 on the pop charts in 1935. The song had to wait until Artie Shaw recorded it in 1938 to become one of the most popular jazz standards. Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman were the reigning clarinetists of the Swing Era, and serious jazz fans divided themselves between the two. David Rickert describes their artistic tension at www.allaboutjazz.com: "Goodman was the peddler of popular tunes who got the crowd on their feet, while Shaw was the musician’s musician who preferred to make artistic statements that people listened to." Rickert goes on to say: "...by 1938 fans were asking Shaw if he knew how to play "Beguine," and Shaw asked his arranger Jerry Gray to come up with a chart for the popular tune. Gray’s original version stuck with the beguine rhythm, but Shaw didn’t feel it would work for the ballroom crowd. According to guitarist Al Avola, Shaw kept Gray’s chords and changed it to a swinging four-four time called "bending the Charleston." "We played it that night at the Roseland State Ballroom," Avola reported, "and the first time we played it we could just feel the vibrations. We knew it was going to be big."

Shaw recently had signed with Bluebird Records, which shared Porter’s assessment of the song. Bluebird didn’t believe "Begin the Beguine" would be big, so was not eager for him to record it. Shaw was recording "Indian Love Call" at the time, and he wanted "Beguine" as the "B" side. Shaw later recalled "…the recording manager thought it was a waste of time and only let me make it after I had argued it would make a nice quiet contrast to "Indian Love Call." Record buyers quickly discovered the "B" side, and "Begin the Beguine" became by far the biggest hit of 1938. It spent eighteen weeks on the pop charts, and six weeks at #1. After this success, every top swing band of the 1940s recorded the song, as did dozens of vocalists as well.

"Begin the Beguine" sold millions of copies and was on jukeboxes all over the world. It made Artie Shaw famous and he temporarily unseated Benny Goodman as the King of Swing in the Downbeat poll that year. However, Shaw was an accomplished musician who wished to record classical music, and he became frustrated with the constant requests to play "Begin the Beguine" when he had greater artistic aspirations. It has been said that he came to loathe the song, even though it gave him wealth and pop star notoriety. He was contemptuous of the bobby-soxers who idolized him and tore his clothes. In the New York Post he declared, "I hate the music business. I’m not interested in giving the public what they want ...Autograph hunters? The hell with that. They aren’t listening. Only gawking. My friends, my advisors tell me that I’m a damned fool. ‘Look here,’ they shout at me. ‘You can’t do that. These people made you.’ You want to know my answer? I tell them if I was made by a bunch of morons, that’s just too bad." Shaw left the music business in 1954 at the age of 43, never again to play his clarinet in public.

Shaw’s curmudgeon attitude didn’t affect the popularity of his recording. David Rickert at www.allaboutjazz.com says it all: "So why is "Begin the Beguine" one of the best records of the Swing Era? Because it is simply one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. It’s the perfectly sculpted fox trot tempo that coaxed people on the dance floor. It’s also the crisp call and response between the reeds and horns and Shaw’s sublime solo. In short, "Begin the Beguine" sums up all that was great about the Swing Era, all from a song that wasn’t even supposed to be a big hit."

"Begin the Beguine"
by Cole Porter

When they begin the beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender,
It brings back a night of tropical splendour,
It brings back a memory evergreen.

I’m with you once more under the stars,
And down by the shore an orchestra’s playing
And even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the beguine.

To live it again is past all endeavour,
Except when that tune clutches my heart,
And there we are, swearing to love forever,
And promising never, never to part.

What moments divine, what rapture serene,
Till clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted,
I know but too well what they mean.

So don’t let them begin the beguine
Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember;
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin the beguine.

Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you,
Till you whisper to me once more,
"Darling, I love you!"

And we suddenly know, what heaven we’re in,
When they begin the beguine.

It’s hard to overstate the influence "Body and Soul" has had on jazz. It probably is the most recorded of all jazz songs, with nearly 3,000 versions to date, and new versions continue to proliferate. Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins’ 1939 version of "Body and Soul" established it as the leading jazz ballad for instrumentalists, and it remains the acid test for tenors. Hawkins’ recording often is credited with establishing the tenor saxophone as the major jazz instrument. Before that the trumpet dominated jazz, thanks in large part to Louis Armstrong. "Body and Soul" is the archetype of a torch song and singers ranging from pop stars to hard core jazz vocalists have used it to display their range and improvisational abilities.

What made the Hawkins’ recording a seminal event in the history of jazz? "Body and Soul" certainly had been recorded numerous times prior to Hawkins, including masterful versions by other saxophonists like Chu Berry. Will Friedwald, in his book Stardust Melodies, answers that musical question: "On this classic version (of "Body and Soul"), Hawkins and the tune are friendly for about two bars, getting along marvelously, before they unexpectedly part company. Hawk may be thinking about the tune here and there, maybe even stealing a glimpse at it, but he never looks straight at it. This was, along with Armstrong’s "West End Blues," one of the most celebrated improvisations of all time, and a key influence on the emergence of modern jazz, in that it profoundly illustrated the possibilities open for improvising on a harmonic sequence rather than a melody line, as had been the norm in jazz up until that point. Hawkins obviously was a master of harmony, one of the few horn players until then who really knew his way around the changes, and he helped lead the way from melodic to harmonic improvisation, which was to become standard practice in the modern era." His improvising based on harmonic structure prefigured the bebop approach, which was still several years in the future.

As has often been the case with other celebrated jazz standards, "Body and Soul" had a modest birth. Johnny Green, its composer, was frequently asked if, when he was writing "Body and Soul", he knew it was going to be the most recorded torch song of all time. His set response was "No, all I knew was that it had to be finished by Wednesday." Along with lyricists Edward Heyman and Robert Sour, he wrote the song at the request of Gertrude Lawrence, an English actress specializing in musical comedy, who was in need of new material that included a torch song. Heyman came up with the song’s title. In February of 1930 the song was copyrighted first in England and Lawrence sang it on British radio but never recorded it. Thanks to the wireless, it became very successful and the most popular bandleader in Britain, Jack Hylton, made the first recording. Recordings by bandleader Bert Ambrose and other British musicians soon followed.

"Body and Soul" returned to its native country in the fall of 1930. It was to be introduced to the American public in a Broadway revue, Three’s a Crowd, starring a new talent, Libby Holman. In spite of its European success, the song almost didn’t make it to Broadway here. Holman objected to the lyrics and was dissatisfied with the orchestration, requiring both to be extensively reworked. At one point she became so upset with the staging that she threatened to walk out. At the last minute, the revue's director came up with a new staging, in which Holman simply walked onto the stage in the classic torch singer’s slinky black dress and sang "Body and Soul." That was all it took to make her a star and the show and the song immediate hits. However, the song still was not universally loved by the New York critics. Robert Benchley, writing for The New Yorker, rendered his opinion that "I do not think that her big number, "Body and Soul," is a very good song (it was imported from England quite a long time ago [sic]and has had its edge worn off by several hundred saxophones)..." And this was before all the tenor titans had to play it after Hawkins threw down the gauntlet!

"Body and Soul" was first recorded in the United States by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra in the fall of 1930, but it was Louis Armstrong’s recording that same year that brought the song to the attention of jazz musicians. His version clung closely to the melody as written, and the song became a favorite of swing musicians, who improvised on the melodic line. The improvisations by bebop musicians based on harmonic structure followed the Hawkins recording. The song appeared in the pop charts an astounding twelve times during the 1930s and 1940s. Although "Body and Soul" was strongly identified with the tenor saxophone for 20 years after Hawkins, pianists like Nat King Cole, Earl Hines and Oscar Peterson used the song to display their keyboard virtuosity. In recent times more versions of "Body and Soul" have been performed on the piano than in any other format. Although there are more instrumental than vocal versions of "Body and Soul", Tony Bennett, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn and Cassandra Wilson made memorable recordings.

Johnny Green wrote the music for "Body and Soul" at age 22, and at a young age he assured himself a place in jazz history. As Gary Giddins says in his book Rhythm-a-ning, "It is hard to imagine jazz without "Body and Soul."

"Body and Soul" by Johnny Green and Edward Heyman/Robert Sour/Frank Eyton

My heart is sad and lonely
For you I sigh, for you, dear, only
Why haven't you seen it?
I'm all for you, body and soul.

I spend my days in longing
And wondering why it's me you're wronging
I tell you, I mean it
I'm all for you, body and soul.

I can't believe it, it's hard to conceive it
That you'd turn away romance.
Are you pretending? It looks like the ending
Unless I could have one more chance to prove, dear.

My life a wreck you're making
You know I'm yours for just the taking
I'd gladly surrender myself to you, body and soul.

My life a wreck you're making
You know I'm yours for just the taking
I would gladly surrender myself to you, body and soul.

Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer collaborated on several film scores, and this jewel of a song was introduced in the 1942 film Star-Spangled Rhythm, a typical wartime all-star musical comedy intended to entertain the troops. The film starred many Paramount Studio contract players, including Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, and Dorothy Lamour. "That Old Black Magic" was played behind the opening credits and then sung by Johnny Johnston, a big band singer who was popular in the 1940s and 1950s. While he sang, ballerina Vera Zorina performed a surrealistic dance number choreographed by her then husband, George Balanchine. Johnston also made a recording of the song that became one of Capitol Records’ first hits.

Margaret Whiting probably made the first recording of "That Old Black Magic" in 1942, but the first recording to reach the Billboard charts was made in 1943 by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra; it remained on the charts for 18 weeks and peaked in first place. However, Billy Daniels, a nightclub singer and Broadway/film star, probably did the most to bring notoriety to the song when he sang it in the 1950 film When You’re Smiling. He recorded his uptempo version for Mercury Records that reputedly sold over 12 million copies; it became his signature song. In 1975 he recorded it again in a disco version. From 1942 to 1961 the song appeared on the pop charts five more times. It even survived a very nutty treatment in 1946 by Spike Jones and His City Slickers, a band notorious for satirizing popular songs, often by employing animal noises, jarring whistles and cowbells, the sound of breaking glass and bizarre vocals. Many songs had trouble being taken seriously ever again after a Spike Jones treatment, but the sensuous melody and exotic lyrics of "That Old Black Magic" allowed it to emerge unscathed.

Johnny Mercer had two sources of inspiration for his lyrics to "That Old Black Magic". He got the idea that an entire song could be written about the bewitching power of love from Cole Porter’s 1929 hit, "You Do Something to Me", with its witty line "Do do that voodoo that you do to me." When collaborator Harold Arlen provided him with a complex 72-bar melody (it had to be that long to accommodate the dance sequence in the film) replete with octave drops and repeated notes, Mercer listened to it only once and then came back with "That Old Black Magic". In Philip Furia’s book Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer, Arlen recalled his working relationship with Mercer: "Our working habits were strange. After we got a script and the spots for the songs were blocked out, we’d get together for an hour or so every day. While Johnny made himself comfortable on the couch, I’d play the tunes for him. …After I would finish playing the songs, he’d just go away without a comment. I wouldn’t hear from him for a couple of weeks, then he’d come around with the completed lyrics."

Mercer’s other inspiration for "That Old Black Magic" was his tempestuous love affair with Judy Garland. The affair began in 1941, when Garland was nineteen and trying to shed her "little Dorothy" image from the Wizard of Oz. Mercer was several years older, married and with a child, but he became intensely infatuated with her. On the advice of friends that the affair would damage her public image if it became known, Garland ended it by eloping with bandleader David Rose. She didn’t inform Mercer first, and he learned of the elopement from a Walter Winchell radio broadcast just as he had summoned the courage to ask his wife for a divorce. He was devastated by the news. The songs he wrote with Arlen at that time show a new poignancy and sadness, and it has been suggested that the depth of sorrow that suddenly appeared in his lyrics had to be related to the lose of Judy Garland. For example, one of the first songs Arlen and Mercer wrote together after this was "Blues in the Night", a blues lament sung by an imprisoned black man after he hears a distant train whistle.

Mercer stayed married to his wife for the rest of his life, even though his affair with Garland would flare up from time to time and they remained friends until her death of a drug overdose in 1969. The images in "That Old Black Magic" of icy fingers, plunging elevators, spinning leaves and burning lips vividly invoke the bewitchment Mercer experienced in their relationship. In the book America’s Songs, Philip Furia and William Lasser describe succinctly the impact of Mercer’s lyric: "That Old Black Magic" came as close as a song of its day could to celebrating the rapture of sex. Because of his love affair with Garland and his timely collaboration with Harold Arlen, Mercer’s lyric registers romantic agony and ecstasy as powerfully as any song in the history of American popular music."

"That Old Black Magic"
by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer

That old black magic has me in its spell,
That old black magic that you weave so well.
Those icy fingers up and down my spine
That same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine.

The same old tingle that I feel inside,
And then that elevator starts its ride
And down and down I go, and round and round I go
Like a leaf that's caught in the tide.

I should stay away, but what can I do?
I hear your name and I'm aflame
Aflame with such a burning desire
That only your kiss can put out the fire.

You are the lover I have waited for,
You’re the mate that fate had me created for.
And every time your lips meet mine,
Darling, down and down I go, round and round I go
In a spin, loving the spin I'm in,
Under that old black magic called love.

In a spin, loving the spin I'm in,
Under that old black magic called love.
In a spin, loving the spin I'm in,
Under that old black magic called love.