My Funny Valentine
My Funny Valentine is a ballad from the Broadway - musical Babes in Arms , composed by Richard Rodgers with the text of Lorenz Hart from 1937. It was replaced by versions of Chet Baker and Miles Davis to a popular jazz standard of modern jazz .
The title
The lyrics of the song contain unusual statements: The mouth of the sung- about man Valentine is a bit soft ; but he shouldn't change because he is so loved.
The song melody goes over 36 bars, in the song form AA1BA2, with part A2 being extended by four to twelve bars. “The A parts are completely logically developed from a simple motif of the first two bars, which is repeated or modified in the course of the A parts.” The ballad begins harmoniously on a minor parallel; the first parts also lead to minor via a fallacy . The tonic is only reached in the last four bars of the song . The song is usually performed at a moderate pace.
First recordings
On the stage, My Funny Valentine was performed by Mitzi Green in 1937 . The potential of the ballad was not immediately recognized. The song was therefore not included in the film version of the musical. It was not until 1945 that Hal McIntyre and his orchestra (with singer Ruth Gaylor ) made the song into the American charts (# 16), where it only stayed for a week.
The way to the jazz standard
But he first gained greater fame in 1952 with Chet Baker's first recording with Gerry Mulligan , which became a "cult recording"; the band's bass player, Carson Smith , found the then rather obscure song in a songbook. 1955 Miles Davis played the title for the first time (with John Coltrane ); In 1956 Ella Fitzgerald followed with the Buddy Bregman Orchestra . This finally led to My Funny Valentine establishing itself as the popular jazz standard in modern jazz . Miles Davis then recorded another breathtaking version with Bill Evans at a concert at a jazz party in New York's Plaza Hotel ( Jazz at the Plaza, Vol. 1 ) and was to refine the piece even further over the course of his career.
The composition has now become part of the classical repertoire of modern jazz and has been used by many musicians, including Franco Ambrosetti , Art Blakey , Conte Candoli , Ron Carter / Cedar Walton , Sammy Davis Jr , Bill Evans , Tal Farlow , Art Farmer , Erroll Garner , Stan Getz , Jimmy Giuffre , Grant Green , Woody Herman , Barney Kessel , Eartha Kitt (with Rolf and Joachim Kühn ), Gerry Mulligan , Oscar Peterson , Bud Powell , Jimmy Raney , Dianne Reeves , Frank Sinatra , Jimmy Smith , Bobby Timmons , Sarah Vaughan and Larry Young recorded.
Important recordings in jazz
- Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Carson Smith, Chico Hamilton : My Funny Valentine ( Blue Note , 1952)
- Miles Davis: Cookin ' (Prestige / OJC, 1956) with John Coltrane , Jazz at the Plaza, Vol. 1 (Columbia, 1959) with Bill Evans, My Funny Valentine / The Complete Concert (Columbia, 1964)
- Bill Evans, Jim Hall : Undercurrent (Riverside, 1962)
- Chet Baker, Rachel Gould : All Blues (reissued by Celeste)
Career in pop music
The title was also sung repeatedly in popular music after 1952:
- 1953 by Frank Sinatra on his album Songs for Young Lovers and in hundreds of his live performances until 1994.
- 1960 by Dinah Shore . She recorded the song for her album with André Previn , Dinah Sings, Previn Plays .
- 1967 by Barbra Streisand for her album Simply Streisand .
- 1967 by Joe Dassin on his album Les deux Mondes de Joe Dassin .
- 1976 by Dolly Parton .
- 1979 by Elvis Costello on two single releases, included on the compilation Taking Liberties (1980).
- 1983 by Rickie Lee Jones on the album Girl at Her Volcano
- 1985 by Nico on her last solo album, Camera Obscura .
- 1990 by Carly Simon on her album My Romance, named after the Rodgers song .
- 1994 by Katja Ebstein on her album Ebstein .
- 1994 by Van Morrison on his album A Night in San Francisco .
- 2001 by Kristin Chenoweth on her album Let Yourself Go .
- 2004 by Angela McCluskey on her album The Things We Do .
- 2005 by Rufus Wainwright on the compilation Sweetheart 2005 .
- 2008 by Jacqui Naylor on her album You Don't Know Jacq .
- 2009 by Trance Groove (sung by Isis Zerlett ) on her album Playing with the Chelsea Girls .
- 2011 by Udo Jürgens on his album The Man with the Bassoon (soundtrack).
- 2012 by Melanie C on her album Stages .
- 2013 by Valentina Monetta on her album La Storia di Valentina Monetta .
Use in feature films
The song was also performed in films:
- 1957 by Trudy Erwin (vocal double for Kim Novak ) in Pal Joey
- 1989 by Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys
- 1995 by Chaka Khan in Waiting for Exhale
- 1999 by Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley
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 .
- Franz Krieger : Herbie Hancock in his time at Miles Davis: transcription and analysis of selected "My Funny Valentine" solos . In: Jazzforschung / Jazz Research 30 (1998)
- Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
- Peter Wießmüller: Miles Davis , Oreos, Schaftlach 1988
Web links
- Lyrics with guitar fingerings
- Song portrait (jazzstandards.com)
- Outstanding jazz versions (Thomas Cunniffe)
- Luca Bragalini: Essay on music theory
References and comments
- ^ A b c Hans-Jürgen Schall: Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. P. 336f
- ↑ So Schaal, who points out that Baker's most beautiful solo about the song can be found on his recording of September 5, 1979.
- ↑ See information about Chet Baker's cover versions ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2007 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.
- ↑ cit. after P. Wießmüller, p. 123
- ↑ Schaal highlights the live recording from 1964 on the album of the same name (with George Coleman and Herbie Hancock ).
- ↑ Sinatra and My Funny Valentine
