I Can't Give You Anything but Love

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I Can't Give You Anything but Love is a pop song by Jimmy McHugh (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) from 1928 that became the jazz standard . The song was featured in Lew Leslie's Blackbird Revue . The text of the German version, Is your little heart still free for me, baby? , wrote Arthur Rebner .

History of origin

Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields had reportedly already written some songs for the Blackbird Revue , which was due to premiere in January 1928, but one outstanding song was still missing. While strolling on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, they saw lovers standing in front of the shop windows of the jewelry store Tiffany & Co. The young man said to his beloved that he would like to give her “Klunker” like the one on display, but he currently lacks the money - “at the moment love is all I can give you.” Based on this motif, the two song authors wrote supposedly a song about love and poverty in a few hours.

In the last few years, indications have been published that this story cannot be true. On the one hand, the song was used in Harry Delmar's Revue Revels as early as 1927 with a different text than I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Lindy (alluding to the aviator Charles Lindberg ) . On the other hand, Harry Singer's biography of Andy Razaf suggests that Fats Waller may have sold the melody to McHugh in 1926 and that the lyrics came from Andy Razaf. Third, Philip Furia has similarities between Fields' lyrics and the song Where's That Rainbow? shown by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers .

Adelaide Hall , Aida Ward and Willard McLean sang I Can't Give You Anything but Love in 1928 in the Blackbird Revue , which moved from the Cotton Club to Broadway and had 518 performances there.

Features of the song

I Can't Give You Anything but Love was consistently in A flat major , simply harmonized and written in the ABAC song form ; each stanza comprised 32 bars .

Reception of the song

The song was already recorded several times in 1928 and made it into the American charts four times:

  • Cliff Edwards (1928, # 1)
  • Ben Selvin and His Orchestra (1928, # 2)
  • Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders (1928, # 4)
  • Segar Ellis (1928, # 19)

Several cover versions were also very successful in the following years :

On the way to the jazz standard

In 1929 Louis Armstrong also recorded the title with his Savoy Ballroom Five , after Hans-Jürgen Schaal it is one of the first recordings of a hit on Tin Pan Alley by an African American. The slow-tempo interpretation ends with a trumpet solo "in ascending, pointed staccato tones until the exciting end." A second version of Armstrong from 1938 is rated by André Hodeir as "the most beautiful solo Armstrong has ever played." Duke Ellington played I Can't Give You Anything But Love several times, in 1932 and 1933 with Ethel Waters , the second time in a concert version in which Waters refers to Armstrong by alluding to his trumpet solo.

As a result, I Can't Give You Anything But Love became a “showpiece for the singers”; Dietrich Schulz-Köhn highlights singers like Billie Holiday , Connie Boswell , Peggy Lee , Martha Tilton , Lena Horne , June Christy , Sarah Vaughan , Eartha Kitt , Una Mae Carlisle (with Fats Waller) and above all Ella Fitzgerald . A particularly exuberant version was created in 1957 at the Newport Jazz Festival .

Instrumentalists also liked the title: In 1952 Lester Young interpreted the song ( Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio ), which was later followed by Art Pepper (1956), Don Byas , Warne Marsh or Lucky Thompson . The song also found its way into the repertoire of Dixieland and, due to an interpretation by Django Reinhardt, into gypsy swing .

German language version

I Can't Give You Anything but Love came to Germany in 1929, published by the Berlin music publisher CM Roehr with the text by Arthur Rebner. That clearly stands out on the incomes of the singer and its consequences, including unlike Dorothy Fields' English text is Rebner text of any social or economic remuneration and is limited strongly to baby to advertise.

A first version of Is your little heart still free for me, baby? was created at the end of 1928 with Lud Gluskin for Tri-Ergon . There were other cover versions with this text in 1929 by the chansonnier Paul O'Montis and the vocal quartet Die Abels . The Karkoff Orchestra played a jazzy instrumental version. The duetists Fröhlich and Welisch on the Doppelflügel also recorded it in April 1929. In Austria, Hans Grünhut recorded the title with Charles Gaudriot's Vienna Jazz Orchestra .

Use in film

literature

  • David A. Jasen: Tin Pan Alley. An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song. Routledge Publishing, 2004, ISBN 9781135949006
  • Dietrich Heinz Kraner, Klaus Schulz: Jazz in Austria. Historical development and discography of jazz in Austria (= volume 2 of contributions to jazz research, editors: Friedrich Körner ; Dieter Glawischnig , UE 26652) Verlag Universal Edition, 1972
  • Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
  • Uta C. Schmidt, Andreas Müller, Richard Ortmann: Jazz in Dortmund: hot-modern-free-new. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2004. ISBN 9783898613002 , here p. 40
  • Dietrich Schulz-Köhn: The Evergreen Story: 40 x Jazz Quadriga, Weinheim, Berlin 1990. ISBN 3-88679-188-2
  • Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era. McFarland Verlag, 2007, ISBN 9780786429462 , here p. 155
  • Manfred Weihermüller, Heinz Büttner: German National Discography. Discography of German Cabaret , Volume 6. Verlag B. Lotz, Bonn 2002. ISBN 9783980580878 , p. 1411

Web links

  • Song portrait
  • YouTube Lud Gluskins Ambassadonions: TRI-ERGON Colorit 3105, Matr. No. 02185. Rec. Berlin, December 1928
  • YouTube Paul O'Montis with whispering orchestra, Odeon O-11 151 (Be 8655). Oct. 1929
  • YouTube Abel's jazz singer: Polydor 22 325 (mx. 1563 ½ BH IV)
  • YouTube Karkoff - Orchestra: Derby blue (20 cm) G-5613 a

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ D. Schulz-Köhn The Evergreen Story , p. 162
  2. ↑ See Ken Bloom: The American Songbook - The Singers, the Songwriters, and the Songs - 100 Years of American Popular Music - The Stories of the Creators and Performers . New York City, Black Dog & Leventhal, 2005 ISBN 1-57912-448-8 ), p. 275
  3. ^ "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby" (JazzStandards.com)
  4. ^ J. Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley . 1990. pp. 216f.
  5. ↑ D. Schulz-Köhn The Evergreen Story , p. 163
  6. ↑ a b c D. Schulz-Köhn The Evergreen Story , p. 164
  7. ↑ cf. noten-roehr.de
  8. ↑ on these cf. grammophon-platten.de ( user SchellackFreak Tue Feb 03 2015, 8:17 pm)
  9. ↑ cf. Kraner & Schulz Jazz in Austria. 1972, pp. 9, 32, 46