In his early years as a songwriter, Frank Loesser often wrote melodies whose sole purpose was to enable him to sing or hear his lyrics before they were set to music by a professional composer. He did not believe that his own melodies were good enough to be published. When Loesser played such a “dummy tune” to his friends in 1942, they urged him to have a go with this melody. The song “Praise the Lord and Pass The Ammunition” became a big hit. This success made him so confident that from then on he set more and more of his lyrics to music himself, as in the case of Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year, which was written for the film Christmas Holiday, released in 1944. In it, the song is sung by Deanne Durbin:

Spring will be
A little late this year
A little late arriving
In my lonely world over here

For you have left me
Where is our April love old
Yes, you have left me
And winter continues cold

As if to say that spring will be
A little slow to start,
A little slow reviving
That music it made in my heart

Time heals all things
I needn’t cling to this fear
It’s merely that spring
Will be a little late this year

The song is one of the few sad ballads that Frank Loesser has written. But despite the break-up addressed in the song, there seems to be hope of reunion or a new love, as the spring does not fail, but just comes a little later. Of course, the song was also appropriate for wartime, as many couples were now forced to be apart.

In addition to several versions that were released at the same time as the film, it was Sarah Vaughan who sang the song outside of this context in 1953.

“Helen Merrill has never made a bad record, and she is a stylist of unique poise and sensitivity,” wrote Richard Cook and Brian Morton in their “Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings”. The singer, who was already featured in Frank Loesser #19, performed Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year on her second album Helen Merrill With Strings.

Born in Rotterdam, Dutch singer Rita Reys already sang in front of an audience as a teenager. In 1945, she married jazz drummer Wessel Ilcken, with whom she lived in Sweden for a while before traveling to the USA on the recommendation of producer George Avakian. There she recorded her best-known album with Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers. In New York, she performed at Birdland and the Village Vanguard. When her husband died unexpectedly at the age of 33, she returned to Europe, where she toured regularly thereafter. In 1960, she married the pianist Pim Jacobs, with whom she recorded numerous albums. Rita Reys continued to be successful over the next decades and performed until shortly before her death in 2013.

Ahmad Jamal, who was introduced in Frank Loesser #11, had initially played in a trio with guitar and bass called “The Three Strings”. In 1955, he changed the format to a classical piano trio and recorded Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year with the latter.

Dennis Farnon was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1923. He learned the trumpet and played in the Canadian Army Band during the Second World War. In his mid-20s, he moved to Chicago, where he studied arranging and orchestral conducting. A few years later, he went to Hollywood as musical director for singer Johnnie Holiday. There he received an offer from RCA Records to head their A&R department on the West Coast and was hired as producer, arranger and orchestra leader. During this time, several albums were released under his name. Dennis Farnon was a founding member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science, which has since presented the Grammy Awards. In the early 60s he moved to London, where he wrote library music for film, television and radio for many years. After a brief interlude in Portugal, Dennis Farnon settled in the Netherlands in 1979, where he died in 2019 at the age of 95.
The liner notes to his album Caution! Men Swinging state:
“Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year could well be retitled “Swing Will Be A Little Great This Year”. The well-known ballad turns into a real swinger with sparkling ad-lib solo choruses by Howard Roberts on guitar, Don Fagerquist on trumpet and Jimmy Rowles’ piano.“

The pianist Red Garland is best known as a member of the legendary first Miles Davis quintet. He was also involved in famous albums by John Coltrane (Soultrane) and Sonny Rollins (Tenor Madness). His playing is distinguished in particular by his frequent use of block chords.
He released a number of albums under his own name on Prestige Records, including All Kinds Of Weather.

In 1957 and 1959, the “First Lady Of Song” recorded a series of standards with Frank De Vol’s orchestra, which appeared on the albums Like Someone In Love and Hello Love, including Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Roland Kirk was a multi-instrumentalist. Blinded at the age of 2, Kirk played tenor saxophone and flute, but also unusual saxophone types such as the manzello (a modified soprano) or stritch (a modified straight alto saxophone) as well as many other instruments. He sometimes played them simultaneously.
He recorded his main work for Mercury and Atlantic Records. Apart from recordings with the Quincy Jones Big Band (he played the flute in their hit “Soul Bossa Nova”), he hardly ever played as a sideman, but always had his own ensembles.
During the session for his first Mercury album We Free Kings, he also recorded Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year. However, the recording initially remained unreleased.

Born in 1919, Anita O’Day took part in dance marathons as a teenager, where she also occasionally sang. She worked as a chorus girl in various clubs in Chicago. In 1938, she had her first success as a singer in a jazz club, where she met the bandleader and drummer Gene Krupa, who brought her into his big band as a singer in 1941. They had a big hit with “Let Me Off Uptown”, which sold millions of copies. After a brief interlude in Woody Herman’s big band, Anita O’Day joined Stan Kenton’s band in 1944, with whom she had the hit “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine”. After singing with Gene Krupa for another year, she began her solo career. In 1952, producer Norman Granz signed her, under whom she recorded many successful albums over the next ten years. However, she began taking hard drugs and almost died of a heroin overdose in 1968. She overcame her addiction and made a successful comeback in 1970. Anita O’Day recorded her last album shortly before her death in 2006. She has written an autobiography about her eventful life and a documentary film about her was released in 2007.

Pianist Ellis Larkins was best known as an accompanist for singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Chris Connor, but also had his own band with which he recorded. He also recorded various duo albums with cornetist Ruby Braff. In 1992 he did a solo album as part of the At Maybeck Recital Hall series. On this occasion, he also played Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year.

Chicago-born singer Abbey Lincoln started out as a bar singer in clubs, but changed her music style significantly after meeting and marrying Max Roach. In 1960, she sang on Max Roach’s groundbreaking civil rights recording We Insist! Freedom Now Suite. She released a series of albums under her own name on Riverside Records, the best known being Abbey Is Blue from 1959. In the 60s and 70s, Abbey Lincoln concentrated on an acting career and only sang occasionally. In the 80s, she began recording albums again, including several tribute albums to her great role model Billie Holiday. From 1990, she recorded ten highly acclaimed albums for Verve Records, which are regarded as the crowning achievement of her singing career. Abbey Lincoln died in 2010.

Born in New Orleans in 1961, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis comes from a musical family. His father Ellis was a well-known jazz pianist, while his older brother Branford is a successful saxophonist. His two younger brothers are also jazz musicians.
Wynton began his career in 1980 with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Since 1982, he has released numerous albums under his own name and is considered one of the best-known trumpet players of our time. As he publicly rejected later jazz styles such as fusion or free jazz, he was criticized by representatives of modernism. Wynton Marsalis has been artistic director of the renowned “Jazz at Lincoln Center” since 1996.

Two Sleepy People was composed by Hoagy Carmichael; Frank Loesser wrote the lyrics. The song was written for the film Thanks for the Memories (1938), in which the song is sung by Shirley Ross and Bob Hope.

Two Sleepy People
By dawn’s early light,
And too much in love
To say, „Good night.“

Here we are, out of cigarettes
Holding hands and yawning
Look how late it gets.

Two Sleepy People
With nothing to say,
And too much in love to break away.

Do you remember
The nights we had to linger in the hall?
Father didn’t like you at all.

Remember, the reason why we married in the fall?
To rent this little nest
And get a bit of rest.

But here we are
Just about the same
Foggy little fella,
Drowsy little dame.

Two Sleepy People
By dawn’s early light,
Too much in love
To say, „Good night.“

Here we are,
Gee, don’t we look a mess,
Lipstick on my collar,
Wrinkles in your dress!

Two sleepy people who know very well
That too much in love to break the spell.

Here we are, crazy in the head,
Gee, your eyes are gorgeous,
even when they’re red!

Do you remember the nights we used to cuddle in the car
Watching every last fading star

Remember, the doctor said your health was under par
And you, my little snooks,
were ruining your looks

Here we are, keeping up the pace
Letting each tomorrow slap us in the face

Two sleepy people
By dawn’s early light
And too much in love
To say…

Hoagy Carmichael himself recorded the song several times, the first time with Ella Logan. The two of them also sing the second chorus, which does not appear in the film but is common in later recordings of the song:

Here we are, in the cozy chair
Pickin‘ on a wishbone
From the frigidaire.

There are two anecdotes surrounding the creation of the song. Apparently Loesser and Carmichael had different memories of it. Susan Loesserwrites in her biography that her parents were guests at Carmichael’s one evening and Frank and Hoagy tried in vain to write a song for the movie. When they finally said goodbye around 3 a.m., Lynn, Frank’s wife, said: Look at us, four sleepy people. Loesser and Carmichael simultaneously said That’s it! and went back into the house to write the song. The printed version of the song actually read: “Title suggested by Lynn Garland”.
In 1973, 35 years after the song’s creation, Hoagy Carmichael said in an interview that it was written in Loesser’s rented house on an old piano. While Carmichael strummed something on the piano, Frank stood next to it with a beer in his hand. Their wives asked them to write something. Meanwhile, both Frank and Hoagy searched in vain for a cigarette:
So Frank’s first reaction to writing a song was his line, “here we are, out of cigarettes,” and I followed with my next melody line to match his words … and he sang “holding hands and yawning.” By that time we could both see that here was the song situation.

Although Fats Waller composed many songs (see the 25 best), he also regularly sang songs that appeared in current films. This was a common business model at the time. In most cases, these recordings were produced before the movie was released in order to be on the market in time in case the movie or song was well received by the audience. With Two Sleepy People, Waller was one day ahead of the composer.

Almost 5 years later, on September 16, 1943, three months before his untimely death at the age of 39, Fats Waller recorded the song for a second time.

Bob Crosby, who was already introduced in Frank Losser #47, came to a recording studio a week after Fats Waller to make some recordings with his “Bobcats”. On this occasion, he sang Two Sleepy People as a duet with Marion Mann.

Born in Essex, England, Vera Lynn sang in the Bert Ambrose Orchestra from 1937-1940, with whom she also recorded Two Sleepy People in 1938. After launching her solo career in 1940, she became a national celebrity, particularly during the Second World War. Lynn sang in subway stations used as air raid shelters and on radio programs broadcast to the troops. She herself sang to soldiers in Egypt, India and Burma. Her best-known songs were “We’ll Meet Again” and “The White Cliffs of Dover”. Her nickname was The Forces’ Sweetheart. Vera Lynn continued to be popular in the post-war period. In 2009, one of her albums reached number 1 in the charts. At the age of 92, this made her the oldest artist ever to achieve a number 1 chart position in the UK.
A centennial album was released for her 100th birthday, for which her original voice was combined with young singers in reorchestrated versions. With this and another best-of album, Vera Lynn was the artist with the most records sold of the year in October 2017. The song “Vera” on Pink Floyd’s album The Wall is dedicated to Vera Lynn. Vera Lynn died on June 18, 2020 at the age of 103. Prior to the funeral, images of Lynn were projected onto the White Cliffs of Dover while “We’ll Meet Again” was played across the English Channel.

Corrine “Corky” Shayne was born in 1934 in Chicago, where she also grew up. She sang in high school bands and took part in several talent shows. She later performed in various clubs in Chicago with pianist Dick Marx and bassist Johnny Frigo before being discovered in 1956 by Mort Hillman, who had just founded his label Salem Records. Corky Shayne’s only album was the first of only three LPs released by the short-lived label. Shayne performed a few more times with Johnny Pate, but soon moved to Los Angeles, where she worked as an assistant to various music industry executives. In 1965, she performed once more at a charity event. She later took up golf, which she pursued seriously, and moved to Palm Springs. Corinne Shayne died in 2005 in Indian Wells, California.

Carmen McRae was one of the finest jazz singers. Even if she did not achieve the same popularity as her idol Bille Holiday or Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, she was not inferior to them in terms of talent and performance. In 1946, she made her first appearances in the bands of Benny Carter and Count Basie. In the mid-50s, she recorded her first albums for Bethlehem and especially Decca, including the album Boy Meets Girl, on which she sang duets with Sammy Davis Jr, including Two Sleepy People. In the early 60s, she recorded a tribute album to Bille Holiday (Sings Lover Man and Other Billie Holiday Classics) for Columbia Records. Further albums were released until the late 80s. Carmen McRae retired from the music business in 1991 for health reasons. She passed away in 1994.

Born in 1932, Frank Caldarone was mostly active in Chicago. His vocal style is based on that of Frank Sinatra, but without imitating him. In the early 1950s, he shortened his name to D’Rone and initially worked as a guitarist and singer in various bands. In 1959, he recorded his first vocal album, for which Nat King Cole wrote the liner notes. This was followed a year later by the album After The Ball, which included his version of Two Sleepy People. D’Rone recorded several more albums in the 60s and performed in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. In the early 80s he toured with Liza Minelli. A few live albums have been released through the years. His last studio album was recorded in 2011. Frank D’Rone died two years later.

Art Garfunkel’s solo career was not quite as successful as Paul Simon’s, but he still had a few hits outside of Simon & Garfunkel (“I Only Have Eyes for You”, “Bright Eyes”). Art Garfunkel performed the Carmichael & Loesser standard for the 1992 film A League Of Their Own.

San Francisco-based singer Jacqui Naylor has released all her albums on her own label, Ruby Star Records. She started out as a fashion designer, but then devoted herself entirely to music. She also sings Two Sleepy People on her debut album, recorded in 1998.

Norwegian singer Silje Nergaard recorded the song for her album At First Light, which became the best-selling Norwegian jazz album in 2001.

Seth Mac Farlane and Norah Jones sang the song as a duet for MacFarlane’s album Music Is Better than Words.

Pianist Jason Moran has also recorded Two Sleepy People for his tribute album All Rise – A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller. It is sung here by Leron Thomas.

I’ve Never Been In Love Before is another song Frank Loesser wrote for his musical Guys and Dolls. It was omitted from the film version of the musical, nevertheless the song has become a jazz standard.

In the original Broadway version of Guys and Dolls, the song was sung by Robert Alda as Sky Masterson and Isabel Bigley as Sarah Brown.

I’ve never been in love before
Now all at once it’s you
It’s you forever more

I’ve never been in love before
I thought my heart was safe
I thought I knew the score

But this is wine
That’s all too strange and strong
I’m full of foolish song
And out my song must pour

So please forgive
This helpless haze I’m in
I’ve really never been
In love before

From this song as well, an interpretation by the composer exists.

A much better singer than Loesser was certainly Billy Eckstine. Born in 1914, Eckstine won a singing contest in 1933 in which he imitated Cab Calloway. As a result, he decided to become a professional singer. He performed for a few years in clubs in Washington, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Detroit before coming to Chicago in 1939. There he was hired by Earl Hines for his big band, in which Eckstine eventually became a star. In 1944 he formed his own big band. Until 1947, many young musicians who became of enormous importance for modern jazz, especially bebop, played in it. In addition to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, these were the saxophonists Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, Lucky Thompson, Wardell Gray, Budd Johnson, Leo Parker, the trumpeters Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Fats Navarro, the drummer Art Blakey, and the singers Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughan. Commercially, Billy Eckstine was more successful as a solo artist, especially in the early postwar years. Therefore, he is considered the first African-American singer who had success not only in the Rhythm & Blues charts, but also with the general public. It was precisely this, that became a problem for him after LIFE magazine published a photo on April 24, 1950, showing Billy Eckstine surrounded by white female fans, one of whom put her hand on his shoulder and leaned her head against his chest. The photo triggered numerous racist comments and possibly contributed to the lack of major hits subsequently. Three and a half months later, Eckstine recorded I’ve Never Been In Love Before. In the following decades, Eckstine remained active, albeit with diminishing success. He recorded his last album with Benny Carter in 1986. He died in his native Pittsburgh in 1995.

Cannonball Adderley, featured in Frank Loesser #19, recorded an album with strings in 1955, including his interpretation of I’ve Never Been In Love Before.

The version of the song by Chet Baker is probably the best known. It was created in the course of the recordings with Russ Freeman, already mentioned in Frank Loesser #22. Before that, the trumpeter Chet Baker had already led a piano-less quartet with the baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, which strongly shaped the Cool Jazz aesthetic. Chet Baker, who could hardly read music himself, became a star at the latest under the musical direction of Russ Freeman, not least because he now also sang. His good looks didn’t hurt either. But it soon became apparent that the self-taught Chet Baker could not handle the early fame and, in addition to beautiful women and fast cars, he also became hooked on hard drugs. Thus, he quickly came into conflict with the law and was arrested several times. When he went to Europe as a result, this did not change either. In Italy he was actually imprisoned for 16 months. In the mid-60s he returned to the USA, but several attempts at a comeback failed. In 1978 he moved back to Europe, where Baker, now scarred by decades of drug abuse, launched a second career. He recorded numerous albums, a documentary film was made and he even received his drugs on prescription. But just when his life situation seemed to stabilize to some extent, he died in May 1988 after a mysterious fall from the window of an Amsterdam hotel. His musical legacy consists of numerous recordings documenting his inimitably gentle tone on the trumpet and his soft, romantic style of singing.

Dolorez Alexandria Turner was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 14, 1929. Growing up, she sang gospel music in church choirs and traveled the Midwest with a Baptist a cappella group. Later, she performed regularly on Chicago’s club scene. Alexandria became a favorite of audiences and recorded four albums each for King Records and Argo Records. In 1964, Lorez Alexandria moved to Los Angeles, where she released two albums on Impulse Records that made her nationally known. To her detriment, in 1965 it was decided that Impulse would only do instrumental releases from then on. Both of her next two albums were released on a tiny label (Pzazz). It was not until 1977 that she resumed recording albums regularly, including a trilogy of songs by Johnny Mercer. In 2001, Alexandria passed away at the age of 71. She was frequently referred to as one of the most underrated jazz singers. On her first Impulse album, she sang I’ve Never Been In Love Before.

Barney Kessel began playing guitar professionally at the age of 14. His great role model was Charlie Christian, also from Oklahoma, who became famous in Benny Goodman’s big band. Christian encouraged Kessel to move to Los Angeles, which he did in 1942 (the same year Charlie Christian died of tuberculosis at only 25). After stints in the bands of Chico Marx, Charlie Barnet, Artie Shaw, Kessel made his first recordings under his own name. In 1951 he became a member of the first trio of pianist Oscar Peterson. The trio’s recordings appeared on Norman Granz’s Clef label. Granz had been organizing the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series since 1944, which Barney Kessel now joined. From 1954, Kessel regularly released albums as a leader. Since he was regularly voted the top guitarist in jazz magazine polls, he recorded two albums with Shelly Manne and Ray Brown as The Poll Winners in 1957/58. Nevertheless, in order to earn a living, he had to pursue a parallel career as a studio musician for film and pop songs. Here he was a member of the Wrecking Crew and played the introduction in the Beach Boys’ song “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, among many others. In 1970, Kessel quit his studio job to return his full attention to jazz. With Charlie Byrd and Herb Ellis, he formed the Great Guitars. In 1992, a stroke ended his active career. He died in 2004 at the age of 80.

Gary Bartz began playing alto saxophone at the age of eleven. After studying music in New York and Baltimore, where his parents ran a jazz club, he took workshops with Charles Mingus and played with Eric Dolphy and Max Roach. In 1965 he became a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. From 1968 he played with McCoy Tyner and recorded several albums with him. In 1970 he recorded with Woody Shaw and played with Miles Davis. In the 70s, Bartz had his own fusion group, the NTU Troop. In the 80s he returned to modern jazz in the tradition of Parker and Coltrane. In 1990, he recorded I’ve Never Been In Love Before live at Birdland. In 2020, his album with the London band Maisha was released. In total, Bartz has been involved in more than 200 recording sessions.

Sonny Rollins is one of the most influential jazz saxophonists. In the 1950s he played with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Max Roach, among others. He composed three compositions for a recording with Miles Davis that were to become jazz standards: “Airegin”, “Doxy” and “Oleo”. In 1956, his best-known album was released: Saxophone Colossus. Rollins recorded dozens of albums under his own name and composed many more songs. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Rollins was evacuated from his apartment in downtown Manhattan. Under the impression of these events, he recorded the album Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert, for which he received a Grammy in 2006. In 2012, he had to give up playing the saxophone for health reasons.

On her debut album, Tierney Sutton sang I’ve Never Been In Love Before. With few exceptions, she has been performing with the same band ever since. Now with 15 albums and 9 Grammy nominations, Sutton is considered one of the best and most successful jazz vocalists today.

Frederick Russell Jones was from Pittsburgh and converted to Islam at the age of 20, henceforth calling himself Ahmad Jamal. Around the same time (1950), he moved to Chicago, where he made his first recordings with his trio of piano, guitar and bass. In 1957 Jamal changed the format to a classical piano trio with bass and drums. The 1959 album At The Pershing, recorded live, became a million-seller. Long decried by critics as a cocktail pianist, Jamal’s rhythm and emphasis on pauses influenced jazz greats such as Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis. He remained active until shortly before his death at 92 in 2023. In later years, most critics also praised Ahmad Jamal as an important pianist.

Both Kenny Barron and Ben Riley were already involved in the above-mentioned version by Gary Bartz.
Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Kenny Barron began playing professionally as a teenager in Mel Melvin’s orchestra. This local band also included Barron’s brother Bill, the tenor saxophonist who died in 1989. At age 19, he moved to New York City and played with Roy Haynes, Lee Morgan and James Moody. On Moody’s recommendation, Dizzy Gillespie hired Barron without having heard a single note from him. In the early seventies, Kenny Barron worked with Yusef Lateef, whom he cites as an important influence on his improvisational art. In 1973 Kenny Barron became a professor of music at Rutgers University. He held this position until 2000 and mentored many young talents. In 1974, he recorded his first album as a leader for the Muse label, entitled Sunset To Dawn. This was to be the first of over 40 recordings as a leader. In the 1980s, Barron played with Stan Getz. He also co-founded the quartet Sphere, which focused on the music of Thelonious Monk and original compositions inspired by him. On his album Minor Blues, Kenny Barron performed I’ve Never Been In Love Before. In 2023, his solo album The Source was released.

Pianist Emmet Cohen runs a stream called Live From Emmet’s Place. In one episode, Gabrielle Cavassa sings I’ve Never Been In Love Before. Cavassa won the prestigious International Sarah Vaughan Jazz Vocal Competition in 2021.

The Inchworm was written by Frank Loesser for the movie Hans Christian Andersen, in which it is sung by Danny Kaye. It is a song about a caterpillar that calculates the number of marigolds it can still eat and is admonished to rather look at the beauty of the flowers. Loesser has here interwoven the continuous chorus with the verses in counterpoint, which adds to the harmonic charm of the piece.

Danny Kaye also recorded the song in the studio as part of the movie’s soundtrack.

{Refrain, sing throughout}
Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
Eight and eight are sixteen
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
That’s all you have
On your business-like mind

Two and two are four
Four and four are eight
How can you be
So blind

Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
You and your arithmetic
You’ll probably go far

Inchworm, inchworm
Measuring the marigolds
Seems to me you’d stop and see
How beautiful they are

INCHWORM
F.L. SAYS
THANKS FOR
THE LETTER

He received a telegram from a kindergarten teacher, Emily Preyer, who wrote that she often made up stories for children and so did a story about the inchworm song. She included the telegram: Your “thanks” in our paper was one of the nicest things that ever happened to me.

Frank Loesser sang the song himself with his wife Lynn.

Lucy Reed, born in 1921, has already been featured in Frank Loesser #44 (My Time Of Day). During her high school days in St.Paul, Minnesota she had sung for a while in a girl’s group on the radio. Lucy Reed, whose original name was Lucille Dollinger, married jazz drummer Joey DeRidder in 1941, in whose band she sang regularly. In 1942 the couple had a son, but by 1944 DeRidder had died on a mission as a bomber co-pilot in World War II. In the years to come, Reed sometimes sang at local concerts for big bands that stopped by on their Midwest tour, such as Woody Herman and Charlie Ventura. Beginning in the 1950s, she sang on Chicago’s jazz scene. In New York, she recorded two notable albums for Fantasy Records. On the first she was accompanied by a still very young Bill Evans, including on The Inchworm. On the second one, with George Russell and Gil Evans, two arrangers were involved who would become influential in jazz in the following years.
Thereafter, the trace of Lucy Reed is lost. It was not until 1989 and 1990 that two sessions were recorded with her in Chicago, which were released on her third album in 1994.

Doris Day sang the song in 1964 with a children’s choir in a nice, but also unimaginative way. Certainly aimed more at children, the photo on the album cover is the perfect visual counterpart to the interpretation. Speaking of counterparts, most likely Doris Day wasn’t aware of what John Coltrane had done with the song a good two years earlier.

With “My Favorite Things”, John Coltrane had already taken a children’s song as a theme, had played it with the soprano saxophone and transformed it into a now legendary jazz waltz. In early 1962, Eric Dolphy left the John Coltrane Quintet and Jimmy Garrison replaced Reggie Workman on bass. This formed what has come to be known as the “classic quartet,” which had its first recording session on April 11, 1962, where Coltrane played The Inchworm, again a children’s song on the soprano saxophone in waltz form, although he was unable to repeat the success of “My Favorite Things”. The piece was still in the repertoire on the November 1962 European tour, but on the Coltrane album it is far eclipsed by the 14-minute power version of “Out Of This World.”

Born in 1928, Sheila Jordan came from Detroit, where she had been performing in clubs as a singer and pianist for some time before joining a vocal quartet that wrote and sang lyrics to the music of Charlie Parker. When Parker performed in Detroit, they sang for him. In 1951, Sheila moved to New York City and became friends with her idol. She then married the band’s pianist, Duke Jordan. In 1962, she recorded her debut album Portrait Of Sheila for Blue Note Records, becoming the first vocal artist on the label. The critically acclaimed album was to be the only one for the next 13 years, as during the 60s Sheila Jordan devoted herself to raising her daughter and only sang in church. She worked as a legal secretary for over 20 years to support herself and her daughter. In 1975, her second album Confirmation was finally released, on which she also sings The Inchworm. In the meantime, Sheila Jordan has recorded more than 20 albums. At the age of 94, she is still giving concerts.

Born in New York, Mal Waldron had classical piano lessons as a child and teenager. But after hearing Coleman Hawkins’ 1939 recording of “Body And Soul,” he also wanted to play tenor saxophone. However, he could only afford an alto saxophone, with which he played in local bands for a while before returning to piano, partly because he had by then heard Charlie Parker’s virtuoso playing on the alto saxophone, and he believed the piano was more suited to an introvert like him. After studying music, he played for a while with saxophonist Ike Quebec before joining Charles Mingus and his Jazz Composers’ Workshop from 1954-1956. From 1957 until her death, he accompanied Billie Holiday. During this time he participated in several recording sessions for the Prestige label, of which he was the house pianist. He also recorded his first albums under his own name there. After Billie Holiday’s death, he worked with the singer Abbey Lincoln and her husband, the drummer Max Roach. Later he named Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday and Max Roach as his most formative influences.

Like many of the black jazz musicians at the time, he took heroin, which almost claimed his life in 1963. He barely survived an overdose, but it took him over a year to be able to play the piano again. It took him two more years before he was able to improvise again. In the mid-60s he moved permanently to Europe, where he found better working and living conditions. He lived first in Paris, then for many years in Munich, and finally in Brussels. He was also very successful in Japan, where he spent about two months every year.
In 1986 he recorded a solo album, on which he also plays The Inchworm.

Two years later Mal Waldron recorded it again with Marion Brown. By 2002, Waldron had recorded over 100 albums under his own name and a good 80 as a sideman. In December of that year he died in Brussels.

Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi recorded his first album in 1975. Meanwhile, he has released over 80 albums under his own name. Musically, Pieranunzi is influenced by Bill Evans, about whom he has also written a book. In 1992, at the Rumori Mediterranei jazz festival, he performed three suites with drummer Paul Motian, who himself was part of the legendary Bill Evans Trio with bassist Scott La Faro. The second suite includes a version of The Inchworm.

The singer Tony Bennett, already introduced in Frank Loesser #23, recorded an album for children in 1998 with appropriate standards from the Great American Songbook. He was partly accompanied by characters from the Muppets show, but not on The Inchworm. However, the song was featured in the Muppets show itself.

For his album Blessed Ones, pianist Orrin Evans recorded a version that starts out clearly reminiscent of McCoy Tyner’s playing on John Coltrane’s version, but then transitions into a freer interpretation in which his two collaborators on bass and drums also shine, both as soloists and in the trio. In addition to his trio, Evans also leads the Captain Black Big Band and was a member of the extraordinary jazz trio The Bad Plus from 2017 to 2020.

Singer Lisa Loeb has released four albums of children’s songs, one of which won a Grammy for Best Children’s Album. So it comes as little surprise that she also sings The Inchworm.

Heart And Soul is not only the title of a film documentary about Frank Loesser, but also the eponymous song by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Frank Loesser.

Carmichael recalls the genesis of Heart And Soul:
“Out of nowhere came a young hopeful named Frank Loesser. He had written a few songs with the tunesmiths that weren’t too well-known. Eventually the studio more or less teamed me with him. Our first song was Heart And Soul.” In an interview in the 1970s, Carmichael confessed that he himself “had never been terribly impressed I’d written the melody. But since [Frank Loesser] had me so unstrung, it was the first melody I could think of. Regardless of my feelings toward my melody, his title was so contrary to the natural spirit of the day, it did seem to ‘sing’ good. I finally decided that it was a pretty good ballad, not my taste particularly, but…“

Although Heart And Soul was copyrighted some four months before the short A Song Is Born was shot by Paramount in December 1938, and was introduced by Bea Wain and the Larry Clinton Orchestra three months ahead of the film, it was originally intended for it.
Carmichael remembers: “For a while, before Paramount gave it to Clinton, the best use the song got was by the vocal coach [at Paramount], a man named Siegal who used it to test the vocal cords of aspiring contract players. Anthony Quinn was on the lot then, and Frank and I heard him sing it so many times before it was even published that by the time it was a hit, we were sick of it.“

Heart and soul, I fell in love with you,
Heart and soul, the way a fool would do,
Madly…
Because you held me tight,
And stole a kiss in the night.

Heart and soul, I begged to be adored,
Lost control, and tumbled overboard,
Gladly…
That magic night we kissed,
There in the moon mist.

Oh! but your lips were thrilling,
Much too thrilling,
Never before were mine
So strangely willing.

But now I see, what one embrace can do,
Look at me, it’s got me loving you,
Madly…
That little kiss you stole,
Held all my heart and soul.

Here is a part of the film, shot in December 1938 and released in 1939:

Also in 1938, it was sung by Al Bowlly, who has already been briefly introduced in Frank Loesser #20.

When Mel Tormé sang Heart And Soul at the age of 26, he already had a good 2 decades of stage experience. He sang with the Coon-Sanders Orchestra for several months at the age of 4 and was a child star on radio shows. He did his first record at the age of 15 with Harry James. As a film actor, Tormé made his debut in 1943 alongside Frank Sinatra in the film Higher and Higher.
In 1944 he formed his own singing group, the Mel-Tones, which included Les Baxter and Henry Mancini’s future wife Ginny O’Connor. The Mel-Tones had several hits, both on their own and with Artie Shaw’s band. They were among the first vocal groups influenced by jazz and set the direction later followed by the Hi-Los and Manhattan Transfer. In 1947, Tormé began performing as a soloist and continued to do so into the ’90s. He also composed many of his own songs. The most famous with his longtime songwriter Robert Wells on a sultry summer day:
“I saw a spiral pad on his piano with four lines written in pencil”, Tormé recalled. “They started, ‘Chestnuts roasting…, Jack Frost nipping…, Yuletide carols…, Folks dressed up like Eskimos.’ Bob didn’t think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics.“

Ella Mae Morse grew up in several towns in Texas. Her parents were both musicians. At about age 9, she first heard a black blues guitarist in Paris, Texas, with whom she became friends despite the racial segregation in place at the time. There, Ella also sang on the local radio station from time to time and soon performed regularly. After moving to Dallas with her mother in 1936, she won a talent contest and was given her own 15-minute radio show as a prize. In 1938, she was hired by Jimmy Dorsey. However, when it was revealed that she was only 15 years old, she was let go. She moved on to San Diego, where in 1942 she met pianist Freddie Slack, whom she knew from the Dorsey band and who was forming his own band. He hired her and soon they got a contract with Capitol Records, which had just been launched by Johnny Mercer. Slack and Ella Mae Morse immediately had a huge hit with “Cow Cow Boogie.” Ella sang with several hiatuses (she had 6 children) until 1957 at Capitol Records, more in the R&B and rock’n’roll genres than in jazz. On her last album The Morse Code, however, she sang jazz standards, including Heart And Soul.

Also released on Capitol Records was the debut album of then 18-year-old Sue Raney. Raney’s early career resembles that of Ella Mae Morse: at twelve she had her first radio show, and at fourteen she had her own 15-minute TV show. Unlike Morse, Raney stayed in the music business, though never with quite the big success. She still released her own Christmas album in 2016.

Ella Fitzgerald recorded Heart And Soul as part of the recording sessions for the Harold Arlen Songbook. That’s probably why it wasn’t released at first. However, it was in her repertoire during the European tour the following year, as can be heard on recordings from Amsterdam and Paris. It was not until 1993 that the original recording found its way onto a Fitzgerald compilation.

On April 17, 1961, a rhythm and blues version of the song was released by the Cleftones, which had been recorded two years earlier. When the Gee Records label was reactivated that year, Heart And Soul was the first release there, reaching #18 on the Billboard charts.

In 1971 the song was recorded by singer Joe Williams with the trio of pianist George Shearing. The former blues shouter of the Count Basie Orchestra can be heard here in a completely different, leisurely swinging setting. George Shearing, who had recorded for Capitol until 1969, owned his own record company at the time, Sheba, which also released the album The Heart And Soul Of Joe Williams and George Shearing, on which all the tracks have either “Heart” or “Soul” in the title (or both, as in the title track).

Cleo Laine, already featured in Loesser #25, also interpreted Heart And Soul on her Loesser tribute album.

Singer and actress Shannon Forsell released her only solo album to date in 2011. Forsell was part of the regular ensemble of The Cabaret theater in Indianapolis for several years, and she took over its artistic direction and management around the same time.

The famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma has made hundreds of recordings of classical music. In 1998, Yo-Yo Ma developed the idea of bringing together musicians from different cultures. He organized a first meeting with musicians from the countries of the historic Silk Road. This project gave rise to the Silkroad Ensemble in 2000, with artists from numerous countries performing worldwide in diverse formations, conveying the cultural richness of their various musical traditions.
Their productions often feature guest musicians, as in the case of Heart And Soul with Gregory Porter and Lisa Fischer.

Karin Plato is a Canadian jazz singer living in Vancouver. She has performed throughout Canada and the western United States. She works as a composer, arranger, music educator and concert producer and is the artistic director of the Joy Of Jazz concert series in Vancouver. She has released 8 albums of her own to date.

Loudon Wainwright III is an American singer-songwriter whose career began in the late 1960s in the folk scene of New York. He is also active as an actor. In 2020 appeared I’d Rather Lead A Band, an album on which he for once does not sing his own songs, but interprets jazz standards.

The Lady’s In Love With You was written for the 1939 film Some Like It Hot (Rhythm Romance) (not to be confused with the Billy Wilder classic released 20 years later). The tune was composed by Burton Lane, with Frank Loesser contributing the lyrics.

In the film, the song is first done by Bop Hope and Shirley Ross. Later on, Shirley Ross sings it again with Gene Krupa and his band. The film itself was neither very successful nor particularly good. Nevertheless, The Lady’s In Love With You became a standard and was recorded many times, e.g. by Benny Goodman, Pee Wee Russell, Vince Guaraldi and Susannah McCorkle (about 100 versions exist on recordings).

If there’s a gleam in her eye
Each time she straightens your tie
You know the lady’s in love with you

If she can dress for a date
Without that waiting, you hate
It means the lady’s in love with you

And when your/her friends
Ask you over to join their table
But she picks a/that far away booth for two
Well, Sir, here’s just how it stands
You got romance on your hands
The lady’s in love with you

If you’ve been travellin‘ by plane/train
And she says, „Please take a train/plane!“,
The lady’s in love with you!

And if she writes every day
Though there’s nothing to say
She’s in love with you

And when she phones
If she doesn’t reverse the charges
As all kinds of lady friends often do
Well just sit back and relax
You might as well face the facts:
The lady’s in love with you!

If she goes dumb, deaf, and blind
While you got things on your mind
The lady’s in love with you
And when she meets your old flames
If she remembers their names,
She’s in love with you!

And Sunday night,
When you take her to see a movie,
If she says a balcony seat will do
Well, Sir, here’s just how it stands,
You got romance on your hands,
The lady’s in love

She’s in love
The lady’s in love with you!
In Love with you!

Just over a month after the first recording by Gene Krupa with Irene Daye, three versions were recorded within ten days in April 1939. On April 4 by Glenn Miller, on April 7 by Benny Goodman, and on April 14 by Bob Crosby. The most successful of these was the version by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, in which Tex Beneke first whistles, then talks to Glenn Miller, and finally sings.

Bulee “Slim” Gaillard and Leroy “Slam” Stewart were a successful singing duo from 1936 to 1942. While Slim Gaillard sang many songs in his trademark nonsense language “Vout”, Slam Stewart’s specialty was to sing along with his bowed bass, but one octave higher. This resulted in funny hits like “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)” or “Tutti Frutti”. The duo recorded with jazz greats like Charlie Parker or Ben Webster. Once in a while they also sang songs by other composers like George Gershwin or Frank Loesser.

Born in 1912, pianist and singer Nelly Lutcher played in jazz bands from a young age and began performing in Los Angeles in 1935. She had her breakthrough, however, in 1947, when she performed at a fund-raising concert as part of the campaign against polio (March Of Dimes) in Hollywood and subsequently received a recording contract with Capitol Records. She immediately had a first hit with “Hurry On Down,” which reached #2 on the Rhythm & Blues charts. The flip side of the single featured her version of The Lady’s In Love With You. In the following years, she had more hits and well-paid gigs. When her contract with Capitol was not renewed in 1951, she continued to record for smaller labels, but now success eluded her. Musically, she had a lasting influence on Nina Simone, whose career began at the time when Lutcher slowly withdrew from the music business. Subsequently, Nellie Lutcher was active as a real estate agent and performed only sporadically until the late 1990s. She died in 2007 at the age of 94.

Joseph Edward Filippelli was born in Brooklyn in 1915. In the mid-1930s he made his first appearances as “Joe Flip” at Schneider’s Lobster House in Brooklyn. In 1940/41 he played clarinet in trumpeter Frankie Newton’s band, but switched to tenor saxophone in 1942. After further engagements with Larry Bennett, Benny Goodman, Wingy Manone and Red Norvo, he married in 1943 and moved to Russ Morgan’s dance band, where his salary was better. Musically, he was underutilized there, so he occasionally helped out with Woody Herman’s big band. Herman recognized the potential of Flip Phillips, as he was now called, and hired him permanently in 1944. Two years later, Phillips began playing in the Jazz at The Philharmonics series of concerts organized by Norman Granz. He became a fixture on the JATP tours and played there until 1957, when he settled permanently in Florida, where he would lead a quartet. A New Yorker, he originally intended to pursue a baseball career, but in Florida he now indulged in another sport, which he paraphrased as Go On Living Flip. In 1999, his last album was released. Two years later, Flip Phillips died at the age of 86.
During his JATP period, he recorded The Lady’s In Love With You, accompanied by the Oscar Peterson Trio and Buddy Rich.

Annie Ross is best known as a member of the vocalese group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. As Annabelle McCauley Allan Short she was born in England in 1930. Her parents came from Scotland and were vaudeville artists. In 1934, her parents traveled to New York, where Annie soon won a children’s radio contest run by Paul Whiteman and landed a contract with MGM. When her parents returned to Europe, Annie moved to Los Angeles with her aunt, where she appeared in several films. For example, she sang the song “Loch Lomond” in a short film by the Little Rascals in 1938. After leaving school, she began calling herself Annie Ross, after one of her aunt’s grandmothers.
In 1952, she wrote “Twisted,” her first vocalese lyric to the song of the same name by saxophonist Wardell Gray. The recording was a surprise hit and earned her a New Star Award from Downbeat magazine. Annie Ross then toured Europe for some time and recorded her album Annie By Candlelight in London in 1956, on which there is a version of The Lady’s In Love With You. At the end of 1957 she recorded the song a second time with Gerry Mulligan’s band. Her successful period with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross lasted from 1957 to 1962. After a tour of England with the trio, she stayed in London to deal with her drug problems. There, in 1964, she opened the jazz club Annie’s Room. During the ’60s, she recorded a few more albums, but then devoted herself more to acting again. In 1985 she moved back to the USA, where she continued to work as a singer and actress. Annie Ross died in 2020 shortly before her 90th birthday in Manhattan.

After a 10-year hiatus, Mel Tormé had another chart placing with the title track of the album Comin’ Home Baby. In 1963, “The Velvet Fog,” as Tormé was called, had two Grammy nominations with the song. The corresponding album also features his version of The Lady’s In Love With You.

In 1960, Sarah Vaughan signed a record contract with Roulette Records, where she released a good dozen albums within 4 years, but then left the label again because she had been paid too little in royalties. Other artists also accused the record company of the same. Two of Sarah’s Roulette albums were arranged by Benny Carter, including The Explosive Side Of Sarah Vaughan.

Tony Bennett recorded his first album at the age of 24 and his last at 94. At the end of the 50s and in the 60s he was very successful. In the 70s, he still released albums regularly, but further successes failed to materialize and Bennett, like many former stars, still appeared occasionally in Las Vegas shows.
This made his comeback all the more astonishing: in 1994 his MTV Unplugged concert recording was released, and promptly won the Grammy for Album of the Year. On the two Duets albums he sang with pop stars like Amy Winehouse and Mariah Carey. He recorded two of his last albums with Lady Gaga. In total, Bennett won 19 Grammys and sold more than 50 million records. In the concerts with Lady Gaga, he still regularly sang The Lady’s In Love With You, which he had recorded in 1967. The song was also in the program at his last concerts in 2021. After that, Bennett withdrew from the public eye for health reasons.

In the early 50s, Mark Murphy was discovered by Sammy Davis Jr. who invited him to appear on his television show. Subsequently, Decca released several singles and his first album in 1956. After an interlude with Capitol Records, he went to Riverside in 1961, where he recorded two of his best albums, Rah and That’s How I Love The Blues. In 1963 Murphy had a big hit with “Fly Me To The Moon” and was voted New Star Of The Year by the readers of Downbeat magazine. In the same year he went to Europe. He recorded more albums in London and Germany and sang in jazz clubs and on the radio. After Murphy moved back to the U.S. in 1972, he recorded 14 albums for Muse Records, ranging in subject matter from a Nat King Cole songbook to Brazilian music to two Jack Kerouac tributes. In the ’80s and ’90s, he was discovered by acid jazz and hip-hop DJs, gaining a new young listenership. In 2013, Murphy recorded his last album. Two years later he died.
Stylistically, Mark Murphy was very influenced by Miles Davis. He said he wanted to sing the way Miles plays. Murphy also sang jazz solos of instrumentalists in the manner of vocalese, adding scat, but more often his own lyrics. In this he was a model for jazz vocalist Kurt Elling.

John Pizzarelli is the son of Bucky Pizzarelli, who had a long, successful career as a rhythm guitarist. John also plays guitar, but as a soloist, and in addition he sings. John has been successful since the 1980s, recording numerous albums, sometimes with his father and/or his brother Martin, who is a bassist. In 2001 he recorded an album with George Shearing, which is a tribute to the album Shearing made with Nat King Cole. On that occasion they also played The Lady’s In Love With You.

Jazz vocalist Ian Shaw comes from Wales, then studied in London, where he mainly performs. Around the turn of the millennium he also recorded a few albums, such as 2003’s A World Still Turning, on which the aforementioned Mark Murphy made a guest appearance. In 2011 he recorded The Abbey Road Sessions, on which he sang The Lady’s In Love With You.

Jazz singer Kelly Eisenhour had her biggest success to date in 2007 with her album Seek and Find. She writes her own songs as well as arrangements for other artists, such as Gladys Knight. For a time she toured with the Boston Pops Orchestra. She is currently the choral director at Green River College in Auburn, Washington, where she directs the Green River Jazz Voices, among others. On her album I Just Found Out About Love, she sings The Lady’s In Love With You.

Guys And Dolls is the title song of the 1950 musical of the same name, with lyrics and music by Frank Loesser. In the original Broadway score, the song is a duet between two gamblers, Nicely-Nicely Johnson (sung by Stubby Kaye) and Benny Southstreet (portrayed by Johnny Silver).

In the movie version, Stubby Kaye and Johnny Silver sing the song again, but here Frank Sinatra (as Nathan Detroit) augments the number into a trio version.

What’s playing at the Roxy?
I’ll tell you what’s playing at the Roxy.
It’s a picture about a Minnesota man so in love with a Mississippi girl
That he sacrifices everything and moves all the way to Biloxi.
That’s what’s playing at the Roxy!

What’s in the daily news?
I’ll tell you what’s in the daily news.
Story about a guy who bought his wife a small ruby
With what otherwise would have been his union dues.
That’s what’s in the daily news!

What’s happening all over?
I’ll tell you what’s happening all over.
Guy sitting home by a television set
who used to be something of a rover.
That’s what’s happening all over!

Love is the thing that has licked them.
And it looks like Nathan’s just another victim.
Yes, sir!

When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky
You can bet that he’s doing it for some doll.

When you spot a John waiting out in the rain
Chances are he’s insane as only a John can be for a Jane.

When you meet a gent paying all kinds of rent
For a flat that could flatten the Taj Mahal.

Call it sad, call it funny.
But it’s better than even money
That the guy’s only doing it for some doll.

When you see a Joe saving half of his dough
You can bet there’ll be mink in it for some doll.

When a bum buys wine like a bum can’t afford
It’s a cinch that the bum is under the thumb of some little broad.

When you meet a mug lately out of the jug
And he’s still lifting platinum folderol

Call it hell, call it heaven
It’s a probable twelve to seven
That the guy’s only doing it for some doll.

When you see a sport and his cash has run short
You can bet he’s been blowing it on some doll.

When a guy wears tails with the front gleaming white
Who the heck do you think he’s tickling pink on Saturday night?

When some lazy slob gets a good steady job,
And he smells from vitalis and barbasol.

Call it dumb, call it clever
Ah, but you can give odds forever
That the guy’s only doing it for some doll
Some doll, some doll
The guy’s only doing it for some doll!

The three Andrews sisters were the most successful female vocal group of the first half of the twentieth century. The sisters sold an estimated 80 million records.
LaVerne Andrews (alto), Maxene Andrews (soprano), and Patricia “Patty” Andrews (mezzo-soprano) were the daughters of a Greek immigrant and a mother of Norwegian descent. They formed the trio when Patty, the youngest of the sisters was just seven years old. At the beginning of their career, they modeled themselves on the Boswell Sisters, who were already famous at the time. In the swing era the Andrews Sisters became internationally successful. Their first major hit was “Bei mir bist du schön” in 1937. They had their most successful time before and during the Second World War. They traveled to North Africa and Italy for troop entertainment, and of course did the same in the U.S., where they also recorded a number of V-Discs. In 1945, they had a big hit with “Rum and Coca Cola,” a calypso song that was controversial because because it mentioned a commercial product by name, and because the lyrics were subtly suggestive of local women prostituting themselves to U.S. servicemen serving at the then naval base on Trinidad. In 1950, the Andrews Sisters recorded Guys And Dolls as well. The trio disbanded in 1953 when Patty wanted to launch a solo career. However, this did not take off, so they reunited in 1956. In 1967, Laverne died at the age of only 55. This marked the end of the Andrew Sisters. The two remaining sisters had another comeback in 1973/74, but then separated for good because of personal differences.

Eddie Costa and his album Guys and Dolls Like Vibes have already been presented in Frank Loesser #21. Of course the title song is included on the album.

Edward Brian “Tubby” Hayes was born in London in 1935. His father, who was a violinist with the BBC, gave him violin and piano lessons at an early age. At the age of 11, Tubby began to play tenor saxophone, and by the age of 16 he was already playing in trumpeter Kenny Baker’s sextet. After a few jobs in big bands, he formed his own band in 1955, an octet that toured the U.K. as Tubby Hayes & His Orchestra and did some recording sessions. In 1957 he formed the Jazz Couriers with Ronnie Scott, who also played tenor saxophone, and it was with them that Guys And Dolls was recorded live. The same year he did a record with trumpeter Dizzy Reece, which, although recorded in London, was released by Blue Note in New York. In the 60s Tubby Hayes played regularly in the USA and also recorded some albums there. In London he then led his own big band, had his own television show and also acted in some films. His last years were overshadowed by alcohol and drug abuse and unfortunately Tubby Hayes died already in 1973 at the age of only 38 during his already second heart surgery.

Born in 1922, Joe Wilder originally wanted to become a classical musician, but realized in the late 1930s that there were no career opportunities for African-Americans in classical music. So he switched to jazz and joined the Les Hite Band in 1941. After his military service, he played in various big bands. While studying classical trumpet at the Manhattan School of Music, Joe Wilder played in the pit orchestra with Guys and Dolls for three years. From 1957 to 1974 he played in the studio orchestra of ABC television, which brought him a regular salary. Along the way, he participated in numerous recording sessions. Of his total of 7 albums under his own name, three were released in the late 1950s. His second album, The Pretty Sound, includes his version of Guys And Dolls, which he knew well enough from his student days. In 1962 he accompanied Benny Goodman on his USSR tour. In the late 60’s and the 70’s he finally fulfilled his dream of playing in a classical orchestra. He played first trumpet in the Symphony Of The New World for 6 years and played a few times with the New York Philharmonic under Andre Kostalanetz. His main activity, however, remained in jazz. In 2008, he received an NEA Jazz Master Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He died in 2014 at the age of 92.

Bobby Darin was born Walden Robert Cassetto in 1936. He made his first records in 1956 under his stage name Darin, but they were unsuccessful. He switched from Decca to Atlantic Records, where he had a smash hit with “Splish Splash” in 1958. He had written the song within an hour after being suggested the title by the mother of radio D.J. Murray Kaufman, who was a friend of his. He also wrote his next hit, “Dream Lover,” himself. By now financially independent, he wanted to expand his musical horizons beyond the rock and roll genre. So he included on his album That’s All primarily songs from the Great American Songbook. The single release of Kurt Weill’s “Mack The Knife” became Darin’s biggest hit and stayed at the top of the charts for 9 weeks. In 1960 he received two Grammys for the song and for himself as “Best New Artist”. His next album, This is Darin, features his version of Guys And Dolls.
Bobby Darin also began a successful acting career, during which he was nominated for several Golden Globes and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was now performing in the best hotels in Las Vegas and was put on a par with Frank Sinatra. Meanwhile, the Beat era had begun, in which Darin had no more big hits for the time being. But in 1966 he released the folk song “If I Were A Carpenter” and turned into a political protest singer. In 1968, Darin worked on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He accompanied Kennedy on June 4 when he traveled to Los Angeles for the California primaries, and was at the Ambassador Hotel later that evening when Kennedy was assassinated. That event and the revelation of his true parentage (his supposedly 17-years-older sister had revealed herself as his mother) led to months of depression for Darin, who spent most of the next year living in seclusion in a trailer near Big Sur. In 1969, he wrote “Simple Song Of Freedom,” an anthem of the ’68 movement, and returned to Los Angeles. He founded his own record label on which he published folk and protest songs and also released his own folk-rock album Commitment. In 1972/73 he had his own television shows and recorded for Motown. Problems with his heart, which he had contracted as a child from rheumatic fever, were now becoming more frequent. Sad duplicity of events: just like Tubby Hayes, Bobby Darin died in 1973 after a second heart surgery – at 37 even a year younger than Hayes.

The Manhattan All Stars were a combo formed by Teo Macero, who would become famous as a producer of iconic albums. They recorded an album called Swinging Guys and Dolls in October 1959. Saxophonist Macero had already produced Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus, Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis and Time Out by Dave Brubeck that same year.

Margrethe Blossom Dearie was born in 1924. On the day of her birth, someone brought peach blossoms to her parents’ house and they took this as an opportunity to give her the middle name Blossom, which she later made her actual first name. After high school, she moved to Manhattan to pursue a career in music. She began in vocal groups singing for big bands, such as the Blue Flames with Woody Herman’s orchestra and the Blue Reys with Alvino Rey’s band. In 1952 Dearie went to Paris and formed the Blue Stars with Christiane Legrand and Bob Dorough, among others. They had a hit with a French language version of “Lullaby Of Birdland” arranged by Michel Legrand. The Blue Stars would eventually become the Swingle Singers. In Paris, Blossom Dearie also recorded her first album of her own, on which she played the piano rather than singing. In 1957 she went back to New York, where she recorded her most famous albums for Verve Records. In 1974 she founded her own label, Daffodil, on which she released her records from then on. She remained active until the 2000s and died in 2009. Her trademark was her girlish singing style, described as light and airy. In 1960 she had released an album of Broadway songs in which she sings Guys And Dolls and adds some verses in which the roles are reversed:

When you see a dame
Change the shape of her frame
You can bet she’s reducing it for some guy

When you find a doll
With her diamond in hock
Rest assured that the rock is gone to restock some gentleman jock

When you see a mouse
Hurry out of the house
And she runs twenty blocks for cigars and rie

Call it dumb, call it clever
ah, but you can give odds forever
That the doll’s only doin’ it for some guy

Terry Snyder started performing with Frank Froeba in the band The Five Shades of Blue, with which he made his first recordings in 1940. In the following years, the drummer participated in several sessions. In the 1950s he played in a number of studio orchestras, such as with Percy Faith and Neal Hefti, as well as in the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra. In the jazz field, he was involved in 133 recording sessions between 1940 and 1960.
As Terry Snyder and The All Stars, he released singles such as “Exotic Sound” around 1960 and albums such as Gentle Purr-Cussion, Persuasive Percussion, World of Sound, Mister Percussion and Footlight Percussion. The latter also features his percussive version of Guys And Dolls.

Guys And Dolls is yet another track on Ella Fitzgerald’s album Ella Sings Broadway.

Founded by Mike Sammes in 1955, his vocal group was especially active in the 1960s as background singers for pop groups. For example, the Mike Sammes Singers sang on “I Am The Walrus” and “Good Night” by the Beatles or on “Delilah” by Tom Jones. They also sang for quite a few radio jingles and commercials. They recorded some albums as Mike Sammes Singers, such as the 1964 album Smooth, which includes Guys And Dolls.

Once In Love With Amy is a number from the 1948 musical Where’s Charley. Music and lyrics are by Frank Loesser. The producers of the musical were Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin. The song was composed six years earlier, when Loesser was stationed in Santa Ana during the war and wrote for radio programs there. He lived in a house outside the military base with his wife and a married couple who were friends. He always got up early and went right to work on the only instrument in the house, a small electric organ. At 6 in the morning, Mary Healey, his friend’s wife, used to bring him coffee and as a thank you he wrote her a song, “Once In Love With Mary.”
In the Broadway production of Where’s Charley, the song was sung by Ray Bolger, who also danced “soft shoe” to it, a tap dance with regular “soft” shoes. The song was sung and danced in front of the closed curtain while scenery was being rebuilt in the background. Such songs during the rebuild, if well received, were often sung several times as encores, so that the actual show had to wait longer to continue. Hence they were called “show-stoppers.” Initially, Once In Love With Amy was not a show-stopper. Then, in a matinee performance, Bolger forgot a line of lyrics and Cy Feuer’s seven-year-old son, who knew the song from the demo recordings he had listened to at home and was now sitting in the audience, sang it out loud. At first Bolger was annoyed, but the audience was delighted, so he now asked everyone to sing along. After Bolger had begun to infect the audience with his enthusiasm, encores were demanded again and again. The number thus soon developed into a spectacular soft-shoe number that lasted almost half an hour on closing night, making it a real showstopper.

In 1952, Where’s Charley was made into a movie in which Bolger dances his “soft shoe” routine and also sings with the “audience.”

Once in love with Amy
Always in love with Amy
Ever and ever fascinated by her
Sets your heart on fire to stay

Once you’re kissed by Amy
Tear up your list – it’s Amy
Ply her with bonbons, poetry and flowers
Moon a million hours away

You might be quite the fickle hearted rover
So carefree and bold
Who loves a girl and later thinks it over
Then just quits cold

But once in love with Amy
Always in love with Amy
Ever and ever sweetly you’ll romance her
Trouble is the answer will be
That Amy’d rather stay in love with me

In 1955, Ray Bolger performed the number one more time on a TV show, as originally in a theater in front of a closed curtain. Meanwhile, he had also included his forgetting of a line in his act (in the video at 5:24): “Whats’s The Next Line?” (laughing as the audience sings it). “I don’t know and I don’t care either“.

The first recording of Once In Love With Amy was made by Dean Martin on November 22, 1948. Frank Sinatra, a friend of his, followed suit 3 weeks later.

The song was satirized several times. For example, there is a weird recording by the Four Freshmen, where helium was probably involved, since it is sung in a “Donald Duck” style voice. The song is also featured in a puppet skit on the Muppets show.
But it was the country singing duo Homer & Jethro who got things started, releasing an album that puts eight Frank Loesser songs through the wringer. Frank Loesser himself wrote the liner notes to the album. An excerpt:
I had a wonderful time listening to them and laughing with Homer and Jethro as well as at myself […] I guess the joke’s on me, but I love it.

Once in love with Amy,
Always in love with Amy.
Ever and ever, aggravated with her,
Keeps you in a dither all day.

Once old Amy kissed me,
I wished that she had missed me.
She made me quiver like a chunk o’ liver
When I fin’lly come up for air.

Amy looks so daring and inviting
When she’s wearing slacks.
From the rear, it looks just like two pigs a-fighting
In a gunny sack.

Once you’re hooked with Amy,
Your goose is cooked with Amy.
Once you have got her, get yourself a blotter.
You’ll be in hot water for life.
You should have got yourself another wife.

She waited hopin’ I would pop the question
Till years had elapsed.
She set and waited for her ship to come in
Till her pier collapsed.

Once in love with Amy,
Always in love with Amy.
Now we’re a twosome, and it’s really gruesome.
When we kiss, it tickles my chin.
I wish she’d shave her whiskers off ag’in.

Bob Keene had two distinct careers. One as a jazz clarinetist and a second as a music producer. Born Robert Kuhn in 1922, he wanted to emulate his great idol Benny Goodman and lead a big band one day. In 1938 he gave his first concert at Glendale Junior College, which was broadcast on the radio as a replacement for a cancelled show. As a result, the 16-year-old was signed by MCA and promoted as the “World’s Youngest Bandleader.” During and after the war, he played in local bands in and around Los Angeles and occasionally on radio shows. He toured as Bob Kuhn until 1950, then as Bob Keene and finally as Bob Keane, recording his first album in 1954. In 1957, he formed a production company with aerospace businessman John Siamas, Rex Productions, with two record labels, Andex and Keen. On Andex, Bob Keene recorded the album Solo For Seven with his septet of notable West Coast musicians, which included a version of Once In Love With Amy. His real job, as an A&R man, was to find new talent for the company. His first discovery was Sam Cooke. When the latter’s single “You Send Me” stormed the charts, Keene wanted to claim his share of the success, whereupon Siamas told him that he would have to invest $5,000 first if he wanted to continue being his partner. However, Bob Keene was not deterred, but instead founded his own record label, Del-Fi Records, on which his next discovery, Ritchie Valens, released his hits “Donna” and “La Bamba”. After that, Bob Keene played only sporadically and devoted himself to his music production career, during which he produced Bobby Fuller and Barry White, among others, but also released the first recordings of Frank Zappa. Some surf-pop recordings released on Del-Fi appeared in Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction. Keene ran Del-Fi until 2003, when he sold the catalogue to Warner Music. He died in November 2009.

The Playmates were a singing trio that had several hits in the late 1950s and existed until 1965. Their biggest hit was “Beep Beep” in 1958, which depicts a car race between a Cadillac and a Rambler small car, which the latter wins. The record sold over a million copies and set sales records for the Rambler model at America Motors Corporation. A year later, the Playmates also recorded Once In Love With Amy.

My favorite version is the one by Mel Tormé. Arranger Marty Paich also quotes “Makin’ Whoopee” here (at 1:35 in the video), another song he recorded with Mel Tormé.

At the age of 16, Buddy Greco was signed by Benny Goodman and toured for four years as a pianist, singer and arranger with his band. In 1951, he began recording under his own name. Originally a bebop pianist, he moved into more commercial territory in the mid-1950s, singing primarily standards from the Great American Songbook. He also recorded pop and country songs. He performed in casinos and large clubs from Las Vegas to Monte Carlo. As late as 2010, he was still performing and touring with the Swinging Las Vegas Legends Show. In 1961, he had also recorded Once in Love with Amy for his album I Like It Swinging.

The Dublin-born Bachelors were formed in 1957 and had their biggest hits in the 60s. After that they didn’t have any more hits, but they still played in their original line-up until 1984. The two Cluskey brothers were still performing in 2016. Fifty years earlier, the band had recorded an album, Bachelors’ Girls, that consisted of songs that had girls’ names as or in their title.

After Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra had already sung the song, the third member of the Rat Pack didn’t want be left behind and so Sammy Davis Jr. performed the song with Buddy Rich’s big band.

In the 70s and 80s, the two star violinists of jazz and classical music met for several “summit meetings” and recorded a few albums. On Songs For The Birds, Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli also played Once In Love With Amy.

Mark Kieswetter and Ross MacIntyre show in their duet that the song still has enough jazz potential in the 21st century.

The song Somebody Somewhere (lyrics and music by Frank Loesser) is from the musical The Most Happy Fella. In it, the tune is sung by Rosabella after she reads a letter from her as-yet-unknown suitor.

Thomas L. Riis writes in his Frank Loesser biography that the launch of The Most Happy Fella was about six weeks too late to have the optimal anticipated effect. With a premiere on May 3, 1956, it was temporarily submerged in the wake of the even bigger box office hit My Fair Lady. Nevertheless, The Most Happy Fella made a significant impact, with an initial run of 14 months at 676 performances. Despite the attention My Fair Lady attracted, critics and fans agreed that The Most Happy Fella delivered an excellent show. “Life” magazine declared it a “landmark musical”.

In the original Broadway cast, Jo Sullivan performed the song.

Wanting to be wanted
Needing to be needed
That’s what it is
That’s what it is
Now I’m lucky that

Somebody somewhere
Wants me and needs me
That’s very wonderful
To know

Somebody lonely
Wants me to care
Wants me of all people
To notice him there

Well, I want to be wanted
Need to be needed
And, I’ll admit, I’m all
Aglow

‘Cause somebody somewhere
Wants me and needs me
Wants lonely me to smile
and say “Hello”

Somebody somewhere
Wants me and needs me
And that’s very wonderful
To know

1956 was a successful year for Doris Day. She was impressive in two challenging film roles, Murder in the Clouds and Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, the film in which she sang “Que Sera, Sera,” which won the Academy Award for Best Film Song. The second song Doris Day sang in the Hitchcock thriller was “We’ll Love Again.” Both songs were released as singles. The B-side of “We’ll Love Again” was Somebody Somewhere.

Roy Hamilton, who had originally come from gospel music, enjoyed success on the Epic label (which was part of Columbia Records) from 1954 to 1961. During 1948, he studied singing operettas and light operas. By combining semi-classical technique with traditional black gospel feeling, he brought soul to Great American Songbook singing. His first number one hit was “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the Rodgers/Hammerstein musical Carousel. An American sailor friend brought the single to Gerry Marsden in Liverpool, who recorded a version of the song with his band Gerry and the Pacemakers, which became the anthem of Liverpool FC and later other soccer clubs. In the 60s, Roy Hamilton’s popularity waned in the wake of beat and rock music, and in 1969, impoverished, he died of a stroke at the age of only 40. Elvis Presley, who was a big fan of Hamilton, reportedly paid for his debts and the funeral expenses.
In 1956 Roy Hamilton had sung Somebody Somewhere.

The Jazz Modes have already been featured in Frank Loesser #31. Julius Watkins was nine years old when Francis Hellstein, principal horn of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, presented a guest performance at Julius’ school. When he heard the sound of the horn, his mind was made up. “I liked the sound,” Watkins said. “I don’t know exactly why, and I still can’t explain it satisfactorily. But I fell in love with the sound and with the instrument.” Watkins toured the world, participated in more than a hundred recordings, played in Broadway shows and was the founder of two unique ensembles, the Julius Watkins Sextet and the Jazz Modes.

For several decades, the album Ella Sings Broadway was the rarest of the albums Ella Fitzgerald recorded for Verve. It was not reissued as an LP or CD before finally appearing as a Verve Master Edition in 2001. On it, Ella sings four songs by Frank Loesser, including Somebody Somewhere.

36 years after her mother Jo Sullivan, Emily Loesser sang the song on the album Loesser by Loesser.

Born in 1948, singer Rebecca Kilgore began singing only in the 1980s and often collaborated with pianist Dave Frishberg in her recordings and performances since the mid-1990s, mainly in Portland (Oregon), where they both resided. She has since released more than 30 albums.
Dave Frishberg, who died in 2021 at the age of 88, also sang on his own albums. One of Frishberg’s heroes was Frank Loesser, who once pointed out to him that song lyrics were not poetry, but a form of journalism. That must have been good news, because Frishberg had studied journalism at the University of Minnesota and had contributed to a literary magazine on campus. Frishberg liked to say that as a lyricist, he was still a journalist of sorts. “He said your main concern as a lyric writer is to lead the listener through the song,” Frishberg recalls Losser’s advice. “Take the listener by the hand and lead him or her through the song.”

The song Luck Be a Lady is from the hit musical Guys and Dolls, for which Frank Loesser wrote the music and lyrics. The number is sung in the musical by the male lead, gambler Sky Masterson, after he has offered a risky bet to the crapshooting gamblers and now hopes that Fortune will smile on him.

Michael Kidd, who did the choreography for Guys and Dolls, told Susan Loesser for the biography about her father how he had to convince director George Kaufman to have a dance in the sewers at the beginning of the dice-playing scene. Kaufman was initially against it: Mike, I don’t understand. How are you going to do a dance here? Do you mean to tell me we’re going to have a scene where these tough gamblers will be standing around the stage while a bunch of dancers get up and do a dance? Mike Kidd then explained to him that the dice players themselves would join in on the dance number. To which Kaufman replied that he couldn’t imagine that for the life of him. Kidd was undeterred, however, and worked out the dance to the orchestral version of Luck Be a Lady. When he had the finished choreography demonstrated to all involved, Kaufman showed no emotion. Then he turned to Kidd and said, Mike, I hardly have to tell you that you’ve done something very remarkable here. Okay, let’s go on. According to Kidd, this was the biggest accolade you could get from George Kaufman.

Michael Kidd was also the choreographer of the 1955 film version, where Marlon Brando sang Luck Be a Lady in the role of Sky Masterson.

They call you lady luck
But there is room for doubt
At times you have a very un-lady-like
Way of running out

Your on a date with me
The pickings have been lush
And yet before this evening is over
You might give me the brush

You might forget your manners
You might refuse to stay
And so the best that I can do is pray

Luck be a lady tonight
Luck be a lady tonight
Luck if you’ve ever been a lady to begin with
Luck be a lady tonight

Luck let a gentleman see
How nice a dame you can be
I know the way you’ve treated other guys you’ve been with
Luck be a lady with me

A lady doesn’t leave her escort
It isn’t fair, it isn’t nice
A lady doesn’t wander all over the room
And blow on some other guys dice

So, let’s keep the party polite
Never get out of my sight
Stick with me baby, I’m the fella you came in with
Luck be a lady, luck be a lady, luck be a lady tonight

A lady wouldn’t flirt with strangers
She’d have a heart, she’d have a soul
A lady wouldn’t make little snake eyes at me
When I’ve bet my life on this roll

So, let’s keep this party polite
Never get out of my sight
Stick with me baby, I’m the fella you came in with
Luck be a lady, luck be a lady, luck be a lady tonight

Luck Be a Lady is one of the songs Frank Loesser recorded himself as a demo.

Eddie Costa has already been introduced in Frank Loesser #21. It is mentioned there that he has released a whole album with songs from Guys and Dolls.

Frank Sinatra recorded the song in 1963. With Billy May he created probably the definitive version of the song. Sinatra sings the song at a slower and more relaxed pace than was the case in the musical. That this recording became legendary, according to Sinatra’s biographer Will Friedman, is due to Sinatra’s swaggering jocular combination of a gambler’s flaboyance and the tight, even swing of May’s streamlined aggregation. Sinatra also portrays less the crook from the musical, playing hidden in the sewer. Instead, Sinatra and May transform them into smooth-groove Vegas high rollers, complete wth glitzy, brightness-at-midnight lighting and gold Visa cards.

Here’s another wonderful version from the show A Man and His Music, in which Sinatra embodies this character.

Quite a few imitators have tried their hand at Sinatra’s perfect version, but no one has come close to living up to the legend. Only in recent times there has again been a series of original and distinct versions of Luck Be a Lady.

Biréli Lagrène recorded his first album at the age of 12. He was quickly labeled as the new Django Reinhardt. Later he musically evolved beyond “gypsy swing”, although this genre still forms the main part of his musical work. At one point he also performed as a jazz singer. He accomplished this on his Frank Sinatra tribute album Blue Eyes.

Harry Allen was introduced in Frank Loesser #21. His co-leader, guitarist Joe Cohn, is the son of famed jazz saxophonist Al Cohn and the father of cornetist Shaye Cohn, who plays with the New Orleans band “Tuba Skinny,” which was featured in Frank Loesser #24. The Harry Allen – Joe Cohn Quartet won the New York Nightlife Award for Outstanding Jazz Combo Performance in 2006 and was nominated for Best Jazz Combo by the Jazz Journalists Association that same year.
On their Guys and Dolls album, Eddie Erickson sings Luck Be a Lady.

Trumpeter Terell Stafford and alto saxophonist Dick Oatts are both professors at Temple University in Philadelphia, and in 2017 they also recorded a Frank Sinatra album with the university’s symphony orchestra and jazz band. Grammy Award-winning Michael Abene arranged and conducted this Temple University Studio Orchestra.

In 2017, the successful British pop and soul singer Seal released an album of jazz standards, which was nominated for a Grammy. The album also features Luck Be a Lady.

Jamaican reggae singer Shaggy had his musical breakthrough in 1995 with the song “Boombastic.” In 2022, he also released a Frank Sinatra tribute album: Com Fly Wid Mi – The Sinatra Songbook Inna Reggae Stylee. The album was produced by Sting.