Diga Diga Doo

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Diga Diga Doo (also Digga, Digga, Do ) is a pop song written by Jimmy McHugh (music) and Dorothy Fields (text) and published in 1928. The lively Foxtrot number has since become a widely played jazz standard .

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Adelaide Hall on the cover of Vu (1929)

The songwriters Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields made their Broadway debut with the music revue Blackbirds of 1928 produced by Lew Leslie , which, in addition to their great success I Can't Give You Anything But Love, contained the song Diga Diga Doo ; he was introduced by Adelaide Hall . The singer was accompanied by a female dance group in pseudo-African costumes with red feathers, which should be reminiscent of the costume of the African Zulu folk group. Hall later recalled: "I hardly wore anything at all, just beads and feathers."

The "generalized exoticism " intended by McHugh / Fields , however, had no specific place or time intended; the "Zulumann" lives in "Samoa near the sea". Typically for the 1920s, the title phrase was a euphemism for sex, as was the song title Makin 'Whoopee at the same time .

First recordings and later cover versions

The Duke Ellington Orchestra (with singer Irving Mills ) was successful with its recording of the song on July 10, 1928 (OKeh 8602) in the American charts (# 17); two weeks later, Irving Mills recorded the song again with his Hotsy Totsy Gang (including Leo McConville , Fud Livingston , Jack Pettis , Frank Signorelli , Eddie Lang , Stan King , this time with the singer Elisabeth Welch (Brunswick 4014). Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club Orchestra played the song again on November 15, 1928 (Victor 38008), the band vocalists were Irving Mills and Ozie Ware , and Irving Aaronson , in Berlin Efim, was among the other musicians who covered the song in 1928/29 Chess master , Teddy Kline and in Great Britain Jack Hylton , The Rhythmic Eight (Zonophone 5383), the South African pianist Harry Jacobson (Picadilly 343) and Philip Lewis with his orchestra.

The discographer Tom Lord lists a total of 208 (as of 2016) cover versions in the field of jazz , including the versions by Duke Ellington with the Mills Brothers (1932), Benny Goodman (1935), Cootie Williams (1937), Red Allen (1941, with JC Higginbotham and Edmond Hall ) and Boots Mussulli (1954) deserve special mention. Diga Diga Doo was also used in the film musical Stormy Wather (1943 (German title The Dancer on the Steps ), directed by Andrew L. Stone ), in which the song was interpreted by Lena Horne .

Web links

  • Inclusion in the catalog of the German National Library: DNB 359412203

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era . Jefferson, North Carolina & London, McFarland, 2007
  2. ↑ a b c Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online)
  3. ↑ Stephen Bourne Elisabeth Welch: Soft Lights and Sweet Music 2005, p. 13
  4. ↑ Pick Yourself Up: Dorothy Fields and the American Musical by Charlotte Greenspan: Pick Yourself Up: Dorothy Fields and the American Musical . 2010, p. 47.
  5. ^ Philip Furia: The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of Americas Great Lyricists . 1992
  6. ^ B-side of the '78 was Doin 'the New Low-Down
  7. ↑ In the cast Bubber Miley , Freddy Jenkins , Arthur Whetsel (tp), Tricky Joe Nanton (tb), Barney Bigard (cl, as), Johnny Hodges (as, sop), Harry Carney (bar, cl, as), Duke Ellington (p), Fred Guy (bj), Wellman Braud (b) and Sonny Greer (dr).