Yesterdays (1933 song)

Yesterdays is a ballad by Jerome David Kern with lyrics by Otto Harbach from the year 1933.

Yesterdays was for the musical Roberta (1933, film versions in 1935 and 1952) written. The ballad, which was originally held in 2/4-cycle is continuously kept in minor acts and " melancholy without being desperate ." The composition comprises 32 bars in the song form ABAB, in a moderately slow pace. The song deals with the memory of the elapsed time of youth, which, in addition to the painful also a comforting page: " Sad am I, glad am I. "

Harmonic structure

The piece is consistent in C minor. The chord progressions are similar to the play " Alone Together " in the first four bars (i - vi - II7 - V7) and with a falling chromatic like " My Funny Valentine" in the second four ( in the key, Cm - G7 / B - Eb / Bb - Am7 (b5 ) ). A sequence of descending fifths closes in measures 9-12 and leads to As and In, which is surprisingly a semitone up to II7 and then chromatically led down to the tonic.

Effect story

The first recording of Yesterdays by Leo Reisman and his Orchestra with vocalist Frank Luther 1933 reached No. 3 in the American Hit Parade. In the musical film in 1935 was interpreted by Irene Dunne.

The song was by a recording of Artie Shaw to a jazz standard in the swing and then also in the modern jazz: the recordings of Billie Holiday ( 1939), Bud Powell (1950), Lee Konitz (1951, with Miles Davis) and Coleman are considered essential Hawkins (1960, with Oscar Pettiford ), and in 1963, with Sonny Rollins. Very often, the song by Stan Getz was interpreted. One of the most remarkable photographs of dates Yesterdays by Ella Fitzgerald, published on their songbook album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook (1963). Newer interpretations originating from Fred Hersch / Bill Frisell, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Lynne Arriale and Melissa Walker.