It's only a paper moon

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It's Only a Paper Moon is a pop song whose melody was written by Harold Arlen and the text by EY Harburg in 1932. Billy Rose is registered as the third author . The song became the jazz standard .

History of origin

The song, the second collaboration between Arlen and Harburg, was written for the Broadway -Stück The Great Magoo , the York in New Amusement Park Coney Iceland played and a crier acted there. Billy Rose, the producer of the play, asked Arlen and Harburg if they could write a song. A song was needed for the carnival crier who actually had no more illusions, but had fallen in love. After Rose called Arlen, he thought of a suitable tune. Yarburg then came up with the idea of ​​the man who looks across the bay and sees the lights on Broadway and thinks that the whole world is a theater, the moon made of paper and the sky made of paper mache. Rose was thrilled and wanted to include the song in The Great Magoo if he was co-authored. The song is in the song form AABA and in G major .

Impact history

The play The Great Magoo was a failure and had only eleven performances; the authors succeeded in the following year in accommodating the song in the film Take a Chance , which is actually a film adaptation of the musical of the same name. Harburg changed the title to It's Only a Paper Moon , but had to share the royalties with Rose, who still claimed co-authorship.

Paul Whiteman recorded the song with his orchestra and singer Peggy Healey in the same year; it reached number 9 in the American charts. The song only became really popular during the Second World War , when Nat King Cole interpreted the song and recorded it in 1943. In 1945 recordings by Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald (with the Delta Rhythm Boys as backing singers) were successful and both hit the charts.

In 1949 Django Reinhardt recorded his instrumental version of the piece. Miles Davis recorded an extensive solo in 1951 (with Sonny Rollins ); Kenny Drew followed in 1956 . Lionel Hampton and Oscar Peterson recorded the song several times in their quartet. The Jazz Messengers of Art Blakey with Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter had the song in the repertoire, as Marian McPartland / Willie Pickens ( Is not Misbehavin ': Live at the Jazz Showcase 2000). With Leon Parker (on his CD Above & Below ) "the song mutates into a ludicrous calypso with the help of pianist Jacky Terrasson ."

Theater and film music

The song was not only featured in Take a Chance . The song was used for the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire , which premiered in 1947. The film Paper Moon by Peter Bogdanovich is named after the song . Furthermore, classic versions of the song have been used in more recent films, by Ella Fitzgerald in the film Separation with Obstacles (2006), by Benny Goodman in The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Edward Jablonski Harold Arlen: Rhythm, Rainbows, and Blues 1998, p. 58
  2. ↑ a b c song portrait at jazzstandards.com
  3. ^ Rolf Thomas, in Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.) Jazz-Standards. P. 262
  4. ↑ Harold Bloom Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009
  5. ↑ Joe David Brown Paper Moon , p. XVI