I cover the waterfront

I Cover The Waterfront is a pop song by John W. Green with lyrics by Edward Heyman from 1933.

The song

I Cover The Waterfront was inspired by the novel of the same name by Max Miller (1932). In the song, a woman longs for her lover at the sight of the night harbor in Cape Town and the sea, according to the theme of the book, in which an investigative journalist chases after the daughter of a smuggler.

The piece has a major characteristic and is written in the song form A-A'-BA '. Each of the A-Parts begins with the phrase "I Cover the Waterfront". The B-part functions as a call and response .

Impact history

The version by Joe Haymes first hit the charts, followed a week later by Eddy Duchin and His Orchestra, which reached number 3. The song became so popular on the radio that it was subsequently inserted into the film of the same name by James Cruz (1933, with Claudette Colbert and Ben Lyon ), which was also based on the novella. In the same year Louis Armstrong and Johnny Green interpreted the song themselves.

The piece quickly became a jazz standard . Probably the most famous interpretation comes from Billie Holiday (1941 with Teddy Wilson ), who later recorded the song several times. Other versions exist by Lester Young (with Buddy Rich and Nat King Cole , 1946), Art Tatum (1949), Count Basie , Benny Carter , Paul Chambers , Curtis Fuller , Benny Goodman , Coleman Hawkins , Jazz At The Philharmonic , Bud Powell , Frank Sinatra (1957), Sarah Vaughan , Erroll Garner , Mary Coughlan , Joe Zawinul , John Lee Hooker , Ruby Braff , Tony Bennett , Artie Shaw , Sonny Clark , Joe Turner and Hank Jones . There are more recent recordings by Adam Makowicz , Wynton Marsalis , Jacqui Naylor , Connie Evingson and Annie Lennox .

The song appears in an interpretation by Connie Boswell in the video game BioShock 2 .

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 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Description and analysis of the song at jazzstandards.com
2. ↑ Billie Holiday Discography ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/bioshock-2-the-official-soundtrack/id353081660