Indian Summer is a jazz standard originally written as a piano piece by the prolific composer Victor Herbert. Al Dubin later wrote the lyrics.
Herbert composed the tune in 1919, but it did not become a standard until much later. Sheet music exists for Everett Hoagland and Don Reid versions, dating to 1934 and 1939 respectively, but the provenance of the second of these, at least, is doubtful, as Reid may not even have formed an orchestra until 1944.
Dubin wrote his lyrics for the song in 1939, and in 1940 Tommy Dorsey's orchestra, with vocalist Frank Sinatra, took it to number one on the American Hit Parade.
Also in 1940, Sidney Bechet recorded one of the first jazz versions of the tune, performing it on soprano sax. Another significant version is Coleman Hawkins' from 1945. Perhaps some of Indian Summer's success as a jazz tune is that it "bears no European mark", being a "thirty-two measure song with the form of A-B-A-C. The melody sings marvelously throughout without a single cliche or let down," as Alex Wilder writes in American Popular Song, despite admitting that he is generally no fan of Victor Herbert.
Indian Summer has been recorded by, among others, the Gene Krupa Orchestra, Ginny Simms, Paul Desmond, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, in vocal versions, and in instrumental versions for saxophone, piano, and guitar.
Famous quotes containing the words indian and/or summer:
“There was so much of the Indian accent resounding through his English, so much of the “bow-arrow tang” as my neighbor calls it.... It was a wild and refreshing sound, like that of the wind among the pines, or the booming of the surf on the shore.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,
And after summer evermore succeeds
Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)