There is no greater love

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There Is No Greater Love (also No Greater Love ) is a song that Isham Jones composed in 1936 to a text by Marty Symes . The song, which has been performed as a ballad , since the 1950s also in medium tempo, and in more recent times even often up tempo , "was one of the most lyrical things that the swing era produced" and developed into the jazz standard .

Features of the song

The song is a romantic love song that is held in the song form AA'BA '. It is emphasized again and again that there is no greater love than the singer feels for his love partner. The text is quite straightforward and explains the strength of affection in the first and last A section: "There is no greater love ... than the one I feel for you", then the thrill and appreciation of love in the second A- Section and to be described in Part B. Symes continues to choose a simple rhyme scheme and economic vocabulary. The rhyme schemes are also very clear in their choice of words.

The melody spans a decime and is easy to sing. The song has 32 bars . The A parts are in B major, the B part in G minor. According to musicologist KJ McElrath, it is "a very motivic melody that is tightly structured" and shows that the composer had a classical education: A basic motif of three descending seconds and a descending fourth appears twice in each A section and once in the B part. The song is considered a "classic ballad that has not given itself too much to the blues ."

First recording

Jones recorded with his orchestra There Is No Greater Love as the b-side to his recording of the melody Life Begins When You're in Love with Woody Herman as the singer. The piece became a hit in April 1936; it reached number 20 on the American pop charts.

More cover versions

Further recordings in the same year followed by Don Darcy and Duke Ellington , in which the alto saxophone solo by Johnny Hodges alone indicates the suitability for jazz. The song was primarily interpreted by female singers such as Billie Holiday (1947), Dinah Washington (1954 on Dinah Jams ), Betty Carter , Sarah Vaughan , Ernestine Anderson (with the Metropole Orkest ) or Dee Dee Bridgewater , only in exceptional cases by male ones Colleagues like The Four Freshmen (1958) and especially Jimmy Scott ( Falling in Love Is Wonderful , 1962).

Miles Davis recorded the song in both 1955 and 1964. Sonny Rollins (1957), Lou Donaldson (1957), Dizzy Gillespie (1959), Stanley Turrentine (1960), Gene Ammons & Sonny Stitt (1961), McCoy Tyner (1962), Joe Pass (1964) and Stan also have potential Getz recognized with Kenny Barron (1991). The avant-garde quartet Circle around Anthony Braxton and Chick Corea played the song in their 1971 Paris Concert ; Mike Stern celebrated it as a " fusion study". The version by Stefon Harris ( Black Action Figure , 1999) was nominated for a Grammy in 2000 as "best jazz instrumental solo" . The ballad has also lived on in soul ( Aretha Franklin , Pee Wee Ellis ) and pop music ( Amy Winehouse , Frank 2003).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
  2. ↑ a b c Jazzstandards.com

-