The Way You Look Tonight
The Way You Look Tonight is a song from the Hollywood musical Swing Time , written by Jerome Kern (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) in 1936 . Fred Astaire performs it in the film of his film partner Ginger Rogers . The song in the AABA scheme was awarded the Oscar for best song in 1937.
After the premiere of Swing Time , Astaire recorded several songs from the film with the Johnny Greens Orchestra . The Way You Look Tonight stayed at # 1 on the US charts for six weeks. Later on, Pick Yourself Up and A Fine Romance also took first place.
Kern wrote The Way You Look Tonight and A Fine Romance as contrapuntal melodies. In the final scene of the film, Rogers sings The Way You Look Tonight at the same time as Astaire's A Fine Romance (with altered text). This is the only time Astaire and Rogers, who have acted together in ten films, sing in counterpoint.
The song has become a pop and jazz standard . Several artists have recorded him, including Teddy Wilson with singer Billie Holiday (1936; # 3 in the US charts), Benny Goodman with singer Peggy Lee (1942), Eddie Condon (1946 as an up-tempo number), Charlie Parker ( Bird on 52nd Street , 1948), Hans Koller's New Jazz Stars (1953), Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers (1954), Cannonball Adderley and Johnny Griffin with Hank Mobley and John Coltrane (1957), Art Pepper (1960), Eric Dolphy (1961), Ella Fitzgerald (1963), Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle (1964), the Keith Jarrett Trio (1982), Brad Mehldau (1997), Bryan Ferry (1999) or Steve Turré with Ray Charles (2000).
The song was also made famous by James Darren , who sang it in the last episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1999 in his role as Vic Fontaine . The recording appeared on his album This One's from the Heart .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Description at JazzStandards.com (Engl.)
- ↑ Banfield, Stephen; Block, Geoffrey Holden: Jerome Kern , pp. 273-274. Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN 0300110472 . (Engl.)