Chloe (song) - Evergreen Recordings

Evergreen Recordings

The most famous recording of Chloe is a parody version by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, featuring a vocal by Red Ingle and recorded for RCA Victor in 1945. Another humorous version was cut by diseuse Leola Anderson in 1957 for her LP Music to Suffer By. Among serious recordings, instrumental versions far outdistance the vocal ones. The most respected instrumental version is the 1940 recording by Duke Ellington's Famous Orchestra, featuring solos by Tricky Sam Nanton and Jimmy Blanton; Ellington's arrangement makes a radical overhaul of Daniels' harmony, and places the verse after the chorus. This chart also appears on the famous live recording made of the Ellington Orchestra in Fargo, North Dakota in December 1940.

Among other notable pre-war instrumental versions of Chloe is Benny Goodman's from 1937, Art Tatum's piano solo from 1938 and those by Tommy Dorsey and John Kirby (musician), both from 1940. After the war, it was recorded by jazz artists such as Herbie Harper, Don Byas, Eddie Bert, Frank Rosolino, Jimmy Rowles, Jerry Jerome, Herbie Harper, Nat Adderley, Cal Tjader, Charlie Mariano, Shelly Manne, Arne Domnerus, Paul Horn, Al Cohn, Bob Wilber (at least twice), Bill Doggett, Flip Phillips and Eddie Heywood. George Melachrino arranged it for string orchestra; Bunk Johnson—in his last session in 1948—recorded it in a traditional jazz setting, and Ry Cooder has performed it as a guitar solo. About the only non-jazz oriented recording of Chloe was made by guitarist Mickey Baker in 1962.

The most well-known vocal version is that by Louis Armstrong, who did not record the piece until 1959; it was also sung on record by Henry "Red" Allen, for ARC in 1936. Ray Conniff included it with a chorus on his 1965 LP Love Affair.