Sweet Georgia Brown

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Sweet Georgia Brown is a title written in 1925 by Kenneth Casey (lyrics), Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard (melody), which has become an evergreen and jazz standard through many cross-style cover versions . It has become a popular jam session number over the years .

History of origin

The authorship was unusual in some ways. On the one hand, three authors took part in the creation of the song, on the other hand, the trio of authors was composed of mixed races, because in addition to the whites Casey and Bernie, co-author Maceo Pinkard was an Afro-American composer.

The song has 32 or 16 bars, is held at a moderate tempo and in the form A'B 'or ABAC. The piece has a major characteristic and harmoniously shows a so-called “ barbershop sequence” of fifths .

Ben Bernie & His Roosevelt Orchestra - Sweet Georgia Brown

Co-author Ben Bernie played the song on March 19, 1925 with his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra , so this recording has the status of the original. This made him number 1 on the charts, which he held for five weeks. Other versions recorded at short intervals also ensured that the title became well known with good placements. These included Ethel Waters with her Ebony Four (with Joe Smith (cornet), Don Redman and Fletcher Henderson ) on May 13, 1925 (# 6), Isham Jones (June 5, 1925; # 5) and Bing Crosby (April 23 1932 with Isham Jones; # 2).

The Varsity Eight (recorded on April 28, 1925) with Red Nichols and the Dorsey brothers , Perley Breed (April 30, 1925), Oliver Naylor (May 1, 1925), Original Indiana Five (May 1, 1925) did not make it into the charts 1925), the Texas Ten (May 5, 1925) or the California Ramblers (May 14, 1925). A total of at least eight cover versions were published between April and June 1925. A year after its first publication, the title came to Europe, where the Danish Reinhard Wenskat Orchestra recorded a version in Berlin in May 1926 (Deutsche Grammophon # 20569).

During the Paris World's Fair on April 28, 1937, a super band came together. In addition to Coleman Hawkins (tenor saxophone), Benny Carter (trumpet), André Ekyan (tenor saxophone), Stéphane Grappelli (violin), Django Reinhardt (guitar) and Tommy Benford (drums) played there. A few months later, on September 29, 1937, Sweet Georgia Brown was immortalized again in Paris by the American jazz violinist Eddy South with a violin solo, accompanied by Django Reinhardt and Wilson Myers (bass). Django Reinhardt had developed an affinity for the song, because as a soloist he was again in the studio with Grappelli on December 21, 1937 in Paris. Between 1937 and 1938 alone, Reinhardt was involved in four recordings of the title. This was followed by successful recordings by Lovie Austin and Brother Bones (1949; # 10). The version of the Swiss orchestra Lanigiro with trumpeter Gugu Dupuis was the jazz record of the year in Switzerland in 1944.

This resulted in sung jazz versions by Ella Fitzgerald , Anita O'Day , who appeared with the song at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 , captured in Bert Stern's film Jazz on a Summer's Day, as well as numerous instrumental versions, such as Count Basie , Ray Brown , Dave Brubeck , Charlie Parker , Joe Pass , Oscar Peterson or Lester Young . In 1952 it became the signature tune of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team in a whistled version of Brother Bones with bone accompaniment . The musicians of modern jazz use the standard as bebop head for their show tunes , like Jackie McLean ("Donna"), Miles Davis ("Dig"), Thelonious Monk ("Bright Mississippi") or Clifford Brown ("Sweet Clifford") .

Tony Sheridan & Beat Brothers - Sweet Georgia Brown

On May 24, 1962, the Beat Brothers ( Beatles ) recorded the music tracks of Sweet Georgia Brown for Tony Sheridan under producer Bert Kaempfert at Polydor Records in Hamburg. Sheridan sang about them on June 7, 1962. The piece was included on Sheridan's EP Ya Ya (1962), it was released on single in July 1964 as the B-side of Skinny Minnie (Polydor # 52324) and reached number 3 in the German charts. The versatility of Sweet Georgia Brown comes as bossa nova by Toots Thielemans (1966; LP Contrasts ), the rock & roll version by Jerry Lee Lewis (January 1971) or in the boogie-woogie form of Oscar Peterson (Montreux Jazz -Festival from July 27, 1977).

Other pop covers played Trini Lopez , Nancy Sinatra and Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1960s, and the progressive rock band Gentle Giant ( Playing the Fool , 1977) in the 1970s .

Further found Sweet Georgia Brown in different film scores, such as Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) or the TV series Futurama or The Simpsons use.

statistics

In total, ASCAP lists 101 versions of the title. The trio of authors were not among the most successful teams of the Tin Pan Alley era, as only 21 titles are registered for Ben Bernie, 15 for Casey and 55 for Pinkard. The trio has not succeeded in another Sweet Georgia Brown classic .

Trivia

Sweet Georgia Brown Hair Dressing Pomade
A Sweet Georgia Brown hair pomade from 1947

Apparently inspired by the song's popularity, Morton G. Neumann founded the cosmetics brand of the same name in Chicago in 1927 - "Sweet Georgia Brown". Products for the African-American population were marketed under the brand, such as lightening face powders, skin creams, hair straightening products and perfumes. The most famous product was a strongly perfumed, golden yellow hair pomade called "Sweet Georgia Brown Hair Dressing Pomade", which has been produced since 1934 until today.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Carlo Bohländer , Reclams Jazz Guide . Stuttgart, Sachteil, p. 299
  2. ↑ a b portrait of the song at jazzstandards.com
  3. ↑ Dietrich Schulz-Köhn, I Got Rhythm: 40 Jazz Evergreens and Their History , 1994, p. 329
  4. ↑ Teddy Doering, Coleman Hawkins, p. 133.
  5. ↑ Dietrich Schulz-Köhn, I Got Rhythm: 40 Jazz Evergreens and Their History , 1994, p. 330
  6. ^ Gerhard Klußmeier : Jazz in the Charts. Another View on Jazz History. Liner notes and accompanying book of the 100 CD edition, ISBN 978-3-86735-062-4
  7. ↑ René Bertschy (Jazz documentation Switzerland) . According to Bruno Spoerri , the trumpet solo achieved "cult status among younger Swiss jazz trumpeters"; see. ders. Biographical Lexicon of Swiss Jazz CD supplement to: Bruno Spoerri (Ed.): Jazz in Switzerland. History and stories . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2005, article Dupois.
  8. ↑ Parker recorded the song twice, first in 1943 at the Chicago hotel session with Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Pettiford , then in 1946 at the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert with Lester Young ( Bird and Pres - The '46 Concerts Jazz at the Philharmonic ).
  9. ↑ Bielefeld Catalog 1988.
  10. ↑ Reference to the Monk composition at Jazz.com ( Memento of the original from November 20, 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jazz.com
  11. ^ ASCAP entry on Sweet Georgia Brown
  12. ^ NN: Trademark entry via Sweet Georgia Brown On: Justia website; Mountain View, CA, 2018. Retrieved September 29, 2018 (in English).