Begin the Beguine

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The song Begin the Beguine was of Cole Porter for the 1935 first performed Broadway - Musical Jubilee composed and texted. It became an evergreen and a jazz standard .

The composition and the text

The pun is approximately equal written and pronounced "begin" and "beguine" refers to the Beguine , one of the Rumba related Caribbean dance , which in the 19th century to the then to France belonging Lesser Antilles originated and from there to Paris came when Cole Porter met him on one of his European stays. In keeping with the Beguine melodies, the song consists of 108 bars in the song form A-A'-BA "-C-C ', each part being 16 bars long (except for C' with 20 bars and a coda of 8 bars).

“The text, which cannot decide whether the beguine should begin now or not, is no less cumbersome.” It is questioned whether the romantic memories of tropical nights, in which even the palm trees sway to the beat of the dance, are welcome . Only shortly before the end of the song does the singer come to the conclusion: "Oh yes, let them begin the Beguine, make them play."

Impact history

In Jubilee was Begin the Beguine of June Knight sang in the role of Karen O'Kane. The first commercial recording was made by the Xavier Cugat Orchestra (with vocals by Don Reid ); it was recorded on September 15, 1935 and published by Victor in October 1935 , parallel to the premiere of the musical Jubilee on October 12, 1935. Other early recordings are by Joe Haymes (1935) and Pierre Allier (1938).

The title owes its fame above all to the recording of Artie Shaw and his orchestra (on Bluebird ), recorded on July 24, 1938 and released in August 1938, which topped the Billboard charts for a total of 6 weeks . By 1944 the single had sold a million copies. In his wake, many other prominent orchestras also took their own versions into their repertoire, including Harry James , Tommy Dorsey , Benny Goodman , Glenn Miller , the Casa Loma Orchestra , Bob Crosby and Ray Conniff , but also singers such as Frank Sinatra (first published in 1938) and other. Teddy Stauffer and his Original Teddies interpreted the piece in 1940 for the German-speaking market in an accordion version. “Begin the Beguine” became particularly well known in Germany through the 1939 Ufa film “ Hallo Janine ” with Marika Rökk in the leading role.

Artie Shaw - Begin The Beguine

Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell created an acclaimed choreography for an instrumental version of the piece for the film Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), which also features a vocal version by Lois Hardnett , the vocal double for Carmen D'Antonio . The song also appears twice in the Cole Porter biography filming Day and Night I Think of You (1946), once performed by a mixed choir and dance ensemble and as a solo by the opera baritone Carlos Ramírez . At the same time, Frank Sinatra's studio recording of the song (at Columbia ) hit the charts in 1946 . Eddie Heywood's recording in Boogie Woogie fashion was also successful . Jazz versions exist, for example, by Mildred Bailey (with Charlie Shavers and Red Norvo ), Sarah Vaughan , Wild Bill Davison , Erroll Garner , Terry Gibbs or Django Reinhardt . The versions by Dizzy Gillespie , Stan Kenton and Charlie Parker (1952) were the first in the Latin sound and contributed to the popularization of Latin jazz . The versions by Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum (1956) also set new standards in terms of interpretation. Ella Fitzgerald's recording with Buddy Bregman's orchestra , however, fell through with its "bombastic arrangement" with the jazz audience.

Despite its relatively complex structure, “ Begin The Beguine ” is one of the 16 “All Time Hits” chosen by ASCAP in 1963 .

In 1981 Julio Iglesias achieved great chart success with his interpretation (in an English and a German version) in Europe and (in the Spanish version he wrote himself as " Volver a Empezar ") in Latin America. In 1985 the German version was again covered by Karel Gott .

Salif Keïta recorded the song for the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue (1990) .

In the film De-Lovely - The Cole Porter Story (2004) the song was sung by Sheryl Crow , the tone gender in this arrangement changed, as in other earlier cover versions, to minor , while the original - despite its sentimental content - in Is written major .

Others

Porter's song inspired Max Beckmann to write the oil painting of the same name in the University of Michigan Museum of Art in 1946 , which is considered to be one of the most important pieces of Beckmann's late work.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b H. J. Schaal Jazz standards , p. 57f.
  2. ↑ In this interpretation (arrangement: Jerry Gray ) clarinet solo, big band use , beguine and swing rhythm alternate in a balanced way.
  3. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 28
  4. ↑ http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/kuspit/beckmann6.asp