A Jazz Standard
In 1917 it was one of the current pop tunes selected by Columbia Records to be recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who released it as a Columbia 78, A2297, backed with "Darktown Strutters' Ball". This lively instrumental version by the ODJB was one of the earliest jazz records issued and sold well. The tune became a jazz standard. For years, Louis Armstrong and his All Stars would open each public performance with the number.
Albert Nicholas, clarinetist, with The Big Chief Jazz Band recorded it on Oslo August 29, 1955. Released on the 78 rpm record Philips P 53037 H.
Its chord changes undergird the Miles Davis bop composition "Donna Lee", one of jazz's best known contrafacts (a composition that overlays a new melody over an existing harmonic structure). Other lesser known contrafacts include Fats Navarro's "Ice Freezes Red" and Lennie Tristano's "Ju-Ju".
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Famous quotes containing the words jazz and/or standard:
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)
“Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievments must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)