A Child Is Born
A Child Is Born is a jazz instrumental piece from 1969 that was later recorded with vocals. According to the copyright information, it was written by the jazz trumpeter Thad Jones ; the text was later added by Alec Wilder . The piece has become the jazz standard and has been played by many musicians.
History of the song
The Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra recorded A Child is Born in 1970 for their album Consummation , which was released that year . Contrary to popular belief, this is not the first recording of the song. Richard Davis and Roland Hanna already played the melody as a duo on Davis' debut album Muses for Richard Davis , which was recorded in December 1969 at the MPS studio in Villingen . According to Hannas, A Child is Born emerged from an interlude that he played between the numbers of the big band. When Jones heard the interlude, he edited and arranged the melody for the entire orchestra. Despite these contradicting information about the origin of the title, Thad Jones' authorship can also be found on the Davis album from 1969.
Wilder heard the piece at a concert by the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra ; he couldn't let go of the melody and after returning to the hotel he wrote the lyrics.
According to the discographer Tom Lord , a total of 471 versions of the title were recorded in the field of jazz from 1969, among others by Stanley Turrentine , Bill Evans , Kenny Burrell and Hank Jones . Vowel versions interpreted u. a. The Singers Unlimited (with Oscar Peterson ), Karin Krog , Radka Toneff , Tony Bennett , Helen Merrill , Dee Dee Bridgewater , Cleo Laine , Keiko Lee , Irene Kral , Ilse Huizinga and Nils Lundgren .
shape
A Child is Born is 32 bars long and written in three-quarter time . The original was recorded in B flat major and has a slow piano introduction that lasts over a minute. The 1970 big band version of A Child is Born was performed in the form of a chamber music number, with the first eight bars played exclusively on the piano before bass and drums are added. Then Jones played the melody again on the flugelhorn before the full orchestra played, and played the melody again to finish the piece. In his book A Short History of Jazz , Bob Yurochko describes the piece as a “beautiful ballad of mainstream jazz ”.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b A Child Is Born - Tony Bennett, Bill Evans | Song info. Retrieved December 25, 2018 (American English).
- ^ A b c N. Pepperl Stories of Standards: A Child Is Born
- ↑ a b Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed December 1, 2018)
- ↑ A Child is Born (Swedish)
- ↑ Entry (secondhandsongs.com)
- ↑ a b Bob Yurochko: A Short History of Jazz . Rowman & Littlefield, 2001, ISBN 978-0-8304-1595-3 ( google.de [accessed December 25, 2018]).