Harold Arlen

Easy living.

Elephant's Gerald gave us the Harold Arlen tune, Blues in the Night.

The lyrics are by the Savannah-based Johnny Mercer.

My mama done told me When I was in pigtails My mama done told me Huh A man's gonna sweet talk And give you the big eye But when the sweet talking's done A man is a two-face, a worrisome thing who'll leave you to sing the blues in the night.

We're next gonna hear three more tunes from that period.

We're gonna hear a tune by Jimmy McHugh and Ted Koehler, who was better known for his collaborations with Harold Arlen.

We're gonna hear I've Got My Fingers Crossed, followed by Thanks a Million by Gus Kahn and Arthur Johnston, and then a Duke Ellington tune, Solitude.

So that's our set coming up.

The screenplay is by Dorothy Jones and Chuck Jones.

Music by Harold Arlen.

Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg.

It was directed by Abe Levitow.

Beyond the Blue Horizon, written by Leo Robin, Richard A. Whiting, and W. Frank Harling.

Before that, we heard I Got a Right to Sing the Blues, written by Harold Arlen and Ted Kohler.

Now let's learn a little about the artist who had the idea to combine all these blues tunes.

Joe Bushkin was born in New York City in 1916, and by the time he was still in his teens, he was already making a living behind the piano.

Going back to the 1963 Civil Rights Anthem, Blowing in the Wind.

And then Billie Holiday with the Harold Arlen tune, Ill Wind.

This was recorded originally in the 1930s.

Billie Holiday gives it a beautiful air of darkness and wind in a way that only she can do it.

Early flirtations with a broader musical comedy approach, casting names like W.C. Fields or Fanny Brice, were dropped in favour of something closer to a coherent fantasy.

In the end, Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg were brought in to write an entirely new score built specifically for the film.

There was also a more practical calculation.

MGM had little incentive to reuse a score it didn't own.

But the logic was straightforward.

The new songs meant new assets to be exploited financially.

Composer Harold Arlen's big breakthrough was the 1930 song Get Happy, which was later performed on screen by Judy Garland in the movie Summerstock.

He also wrote the blues-tinged standards Stormy Weather and I've Got the World on a String.

From a session of January 1946, we heard all four of the songs, uh, recorded.

Harold Arlen's "It's Only a Paper Moon." Then we heard a up-tempo attacking version of an old standby, an old song even in 1946, Creamer and Layton's "After You've Gone." And then he totally deconstructs, even in the initial melody statement, Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein's "Lover, Come Back to Me." And finally, original piece called "Jamming with Lester." Willie Smith on alto sax, with Prez on tenor, Howard McGhee trumpet, Vic Dickinson trombone, Leslie Jones piano, Curris Countz on bass, and Johnny Otis at the drums.

And then we heard Walter Donaldson's "You're Driving Me Crazy" from an August 1946 session here with Joe Albany at the piano, Irving Ashby guitar, Red Callender bass, and Chico Hamilton on drums backing Prez, Lester Young.

And you're hearing this music on radio station WKCR FM New York, 89.9 on the radio dial here in the New York City area and streaming around the world over the internet at wkcr.org.

Yes.

Hey Ben, Stormy Weather was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Kohler.

It's a blues song that uses bad weather as a metaphor for loneliness.

You're right.

Yeah, genre.

I am like a sucker for, you know, older music, Harold Arlen, the Gershwin and stuff.

And that's kind of where it's leaning toward.

I have some contemporary stuff, some Sondheim in there and some other things like that.