Lullaby of Birdland
Lullaby of Birdland is a jazz standard, which was composed and published in 1952 by pianist George Shearing. The title is a tribute to the named after Charlie "Bird" Parker jazz club Birdland.
Genesis
Birdland was the famous New York jazz club at 1678 Broadway / corner of 53rd Street. It was founded by Morris Levy and Levy Erving and the Entrepreneur Monte Kay, who opened it on December 15, 1949. At the glittering opening took part in particular Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young and Harry Belafonte. However, he had his name not from the 20 occupied with real finch bird cages ( "birds "), but also present at the opening ceremony of the Charlie "Bird" Parker.
Co-founder Morris Levy had demonstrations from the Jazz Club on January 6, 1951 transferred from the New York radio station WJZ, asking 1952 a native of England blind bandleader George Shearing, writing for the famous jazz club, a signature tune that should be played every hour in the club. Shearing had just occurred on July 3, 1952, Arnett Cobb at Birdland. Levy was the owner of the music publishing Patricia Music, which should shift the composition.
Home fell Shearing few days later, a melody, which he immediately perfected at the piano and had through-composed in 10 minutes. It was the Lullaby of Birdland ( Lullaby Lullaby = ) to the George David Weiss wrote a text. Latter, however, appeared under the pseudonym BY Forster because he was a member of the collecting society ASCAP while Shearing was one of the competing BMI. Several authors of a composition were not allowed to belong to different societies and had to help with pseudonyms. The piece is written in the " Shearing Sound", in which the piano melody is repeated as a chord of vibraphone and guitar one octave below the actual melody. The key was originally E minor with the normal structure of 32 bars in the song form AABA. The piece plays with the almost imperceptible change of melody sequence of F minor for parallel flat major. The B section is tonally ambiguous, it starts in parallel to As F major, but develops then reinterpreted to A flat major.
Recording and publication
The pictures were taken on 17 July 1952, the George Shearing Quintet in the occupation of George Shearing ( piano ), Dick Garcia ( guitar), Al McKibbon ( bass), Joe Roland (vibraphone ) and Marquis Foster (drums). The vocal part took over the Ray Charles Singers. The single When The Lights Are Low / Lullaby of Birdland (MGM Records 11354 ) was published in August 1952, but reached neither the charts nor special plate sales.
Cover versions
Nevertheless, it was common, especially in jazz, gecovert and developed as a jam session favorite. Ella Fitzgerald attacked the song first on (recorded on August 4, 1952), Duke Ellington played him at his live concert at Carnegie Hall on November 14, 1952. Was followed by the Stan Getz Quintet (19 December 1952), Erroll Garner (30 March 1953), jazz pianist Bud Powell ( WJZ radio broadcast from Birdland ) for the first time on February 7, 1953 Charlie Parker on 30 May 1953 ( also live from Birdland ), Art Blakey Quintet ( February 21, 1954 from Birdland ), Charlie Barnet (29 November 1954), Sarah Vaughan ( 16 and 18 December 1954), Red Prysock and his Orchestra (July 8, 1955), Ralph matter ( October 1955 ), Mel Tormé with Marty Paich ( 16 and 17 January 1956). The French formation Blue Stars brought with a rank 16 in the U.S. pop singles chart, the only charts listing the songs out (4 February 1956 published in October 1956). Bill Haley tried a Lullaby of Birdland Twist ( 23 to 25 March 1962). Amy Winehouse also recorded the song in their repertoire ( accompanied by the Johnny Dankworth Big Band, Stables Theatre Wavendon in, November 14, 2003, LP Amy Live at BBC, published on November 12, 2004 ). There are at least 48 registered versions (BMI ), some authors believe that over 400 versions of. Composer Shearing, who wrote around 300 titles, presented him humorously on his 80th birthday at Carnegie Hall on 30 November 1999 with the words: "I wrote 300 songs. 299 of them enjoyed a bumpy ride from relative obscurity to oblivion. Here is the other ", which became an Evergreen.