What's new?
What's new? is a pop song from 1939 with lyrics by Johnny Burke and composed by Bob Haggart . It developed into the jazz standard .
Origin and characteristics of the song
The 32-bar ballad What's New? (in the moderately slow tempo and the song form AABA) is based on the 1938 instrumental piece I'm Free, composed by Bob Haggart and written as a member of Bob Crosby's orchestra. The piece was provided with a trumpet solo, which the then band member Billy Butterfield put out; Bob Crosby's orchestra recorded I'm Free in October 1938.
The melody fascinates in its “refined simplicity”, whereby the B part is almost a transposition of the A part onto the subdominant . And although the piece is written in major , "you always have the feeling of hearing a minor ."
In the following year the music publisher Warner-Chappell , who had published the composition, came to the conclusion that the piece had hit potential as a vocal number. Therefore, songwriter Johnny Burke was commissioned to write lyrics for the composition. Burke's text referred to a conversation between a former love couple: You see your former love partner again for the first time after the separation, inquire about how they are and when you say goodbye confess that love is still there. After the first line of the song - What's New? - the song has been renamed.
History of impact as a pop song
With the new title he was recorded in 1939 by Bob Crosby And His Orchestra with the band vocalist Teddy Grace and reached number 10 in the American charts. Other successful versions recorded in the same year Hal Kemp and his orchestra with the vocalist Nan Wynn , who rose to number 11 on the charts, and Benny Goodman and his orchestra with the singer Louise Tobin , who came to number 7. The version by Bing Crosby , also from 1939, reached second place on the American charts.
Linda Ronstadt made the song the theme song of her first album with Standards (1983); for the arrangements was Nelson Riddle a Grammy as Best Instrumental Arrangement for vocal accompaniment .
Development to the jazz standard
After its first recording by the popular swing band, it was popular again in the 1950s through versions by Helen Merrill / Clifford Brown (1954), Ella Fitzgerald (1957), Frank Sinatra (1958), and also by Billie Holiday (1955, with Benny Carter ), Louis Armstrong (with Oscar Peterson ), Betty Carter , Carmen McRae , Ana Paula Lopes and Karrin Allyson . But instrumental versions were also recorded: the piece not only remained a showcase for trumpeters like Clifford Brown (1955), Jack Sheldon or Chet Baker (1979), it was also performed by Stan Getz (1950), Serge Chaloff , and Bobby Jaspar (1956 with Tommy Flanagan ), recorded by Sonny Rollins , Larry Coryell and Jeremy Steig (1969 with Bill Evans ).
new text
The original melody of I'm Free was given a new text in the 1990s by Australian singer Catherine O'Brien; she kept the title I'm Free .
- I'm free
- You've said goodbye and I'm free
Web links
literature
- Carlo Bohländer , Karl Heinz Holler, Christian Pfarr: Reclam's Jazz Guide . 5th, revised and supplemented edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-15-010464-5 .
- Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .