Embraceable You
Embraceable You is the title of a song by George Gershwin from 1930. Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics .
The song
The song was originally written by Gershwin in 1928 for the unpublished operetta called East is West . The composition has 32 bars and is in the ABAC song form ; it is laid out at a moderate pace. A quarter rest is followed by three ascending quarter notes (e-f sharp-g), after another quarter rest the three notes again, then an a, which releases the tension. The note values carried dominate the song. A special punch line is the only passage with eighth notes in the C part (to the text “come to papa, come to papa, do”), which gives the song the rhythmic kick and can be considered a trademark for a Gershwin melody.
The song was eventually used as a love song in the musical Girl Crazy and performed there for the first time on October 14, 1930 by Allen Kearns and Ginger Rogers . The musical was filmed several times (1932, 1943 and as When The Boys Meet The Girls 1965). The song was also used in the films Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris . A first record of Red Nichols and his Five Pennies with singer Dick Robertson came in at number 2 on the American charts in November 1930. Embraceable You is one of the "most played Gershwin songs: a ballad of the highest economy."
Effect as a jazz standard
Embraceable You became a jazz standard in swing and modern jazz . First of all, the interpretations of Pee Wee Russell , Bobby Hackett (1938) and Tommy Dorsey (1941 with singer Helen O'Connell ) should be mentioned. In 1946 Duke Ellington recorded the piece for the first time. The song became a favorite ballad of many bebop jazz musicians , such as Charlie Parker (1947) and Dizzy Gillespie . He was also repeatedly played in the sessions of the Jazz At The Philharmonic concerts. As formative vocalists Billie Holiday (1944) and Frank Sinatra (1944, 1960) must be named; Sarah Vaughan took on Clifford Brown in 1954, another widely acclaimed interpretation. Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald (1983) were added later . Peg LaCentra made a cameo with "Embraceable You" in the Joan Crawford film Humoreske (1946).
Other versions of Embraceable You exist by various musicians of swing and modern jazz, such as George Cables (1987), Stan Getz , Coleman Hawkins , Johnny Hodges , Eric Kloss (1965), Jackie McLean / Sonny Stitt , Glenn Miller , Red Norvo , Joe Pass , Bud Powell , Archie Shepp , Zoot Sims , John Stetch (1996), Art Tatum , Teddy Wilson and Lester Young . The piece has also been recorded by musicians such as Sidney Bechet (1944, 1957) and Ornette Coleman (1960).
literature
- Carlo Bohländer , Karl Heinz Holler, Christian Pfarr: Reclam's Jazz Guide . 4th, revised and supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-15-010355-X .
- Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
- Peter Niklas Wilson , Ulfert Goeman: Charlie Parker. His life, his music, his records . Oreos, Schaftlach 1988, ISBN 3-923657-12-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ “Embraceable You” (1930) at WICN.org ( Memento from March 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Schaal: Jazz Standards , p. 134