Just Friends (song)
Just Friends is a pop song written by John Klenner (music) and Sam M. Lewis (lyrics) in 1931. The song became the jazz standard .
Features of the song
The lyrics of the song are about an intense love affair that falls apart. Will it come to a complete end or can a friendship develop from it - “Just Friends, Lovers No More”? Klenner's music underlines the text "with a sure sense of the dramaturgy": major chords underline the word "friends", but where the end and no longer the relationship are mentioned, minor harmonies and diminished chords dominate . The melody itself left the key unclear for a long time; already "the first notes scream for a harmonic dissolution." The song is written in the song form ABAB '.
Impact history
A first recording from October 1931 by Red McKenzie and His Orchestra (with Time on My Hands on the B-side) was only moderately successful. Cover versions of Russ Columbo with the orchestra of Leonard Joy in February 1932 and Ben Selvin with his orchestra in April 1932, both of which reached number 14 in the American charts, had more success . Several other recordings were made in 1932, for example by Jack Hylton . A recording by the Casa Loma Orchestra followed in 1941 .
It was only the bebop jazz musicians who discovered the possibilities that the harmony structure of the song offered for their improvisations . Gil Evans introduced Charlie Parker to Just Friends when he played him Sarah Vaughan's recording of a solo by Jimmy Maxwell . Parker's version (based on Charlie Parker with Strings from November 1949) became his biggest hit; it contains "some of the most successful choruses of the alto ." As a result, other greats of bop such as Dexter Gordon , JJ Johnson and Kenny Dorham , but also cool jazz stylists such as Lee Konitz , Chet Baker and Carl Perkins Just Friends played . Sonny Rollins recorded the song in 1963 with Coleman Hawkins , John Coltrane with Cecil Taylor ( Coltrane Time , 1958). Stan Getz interpreted Just Friends together with Helen Merrill on (on their eponymous album). Billie Holiday , Frank Sinatra , Tony Bennett , Irene Kral and Andy Bey also sang the song. Pat Martino's up-tempo version (on El Hombre , 1967) contributed to the fact that guitarists - such as Larry Coryell ( Toku Do , 1987) and Ted Greene ( solo guitar ) - and organists were interested in the piece.
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 .