|
“A highlight of
this recording is the playing of
her musical soulmate, Lester Young,
and sometime Bing Crosby accompanist
Joe Sullivan on piano.” |
|
 |
|
- Chris Tyle
|
|
|
|
Sometimes
a song manages to succeed against
all odds. As the sheet music for
“The Man I Love” was on its way
to production, it was unceremoniously
dropped from the 1924 Broadway musical
Lady, Be Good! The song was
then included in Strike Up the
Band (1927), which closed during
its out-of-town tryouts. It was
then slated for the Ziegfeld hit
Rosalie (1928), a team effort
by
Sigmund Romberg, the Gershwins,
and P.G. Wodehouse. Yet again the
song was dropped before the show
opened. Even a modestly successful
1930 revival of Strike Up the
Band could not end the song’s
streak of bad luck as the Gershwins
agreed to drop it before the show
opened.
Despite such endless setbacks,
the homeless composition had become
popular in London and Paris as Lady
Mountbatten, a Gershwin friend,
had returned to Europe with a copy
of the sheet music. Slower to catch
on in the United States, the popularity
of “The Man I Love” crested in 1928
with five recordings on the pop
charts in the same year. A 1927
recording by
Marion Harris led the way, entering
the charts in March and rising to
number four.
-
Marion Harris (1928, #4)
- Sophie Tucker (1928 #11)
-
Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra
(1928, Vaughan DeLeath, vocal,
#15)
- Fred Rich and His Orchestra
(1928, Vaughan DeLeath, vocal,
#19)
-
Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
(1937, #20)
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
“The Man I Love” was also the
signature song for George Gershwin’s
weekly CBS radio show, Music
by Gershwin, which ran from
1934 to 1935.
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
The ballad’s checkered past was
not due to lack of appeal and it
became one of Gershwin’s biggest
hits despite the lack of a successful
production association. The song’s
problem stemmed more from the fact
that it just didn’t fit in a lively
musical. Standing alone “The Man
I Love” was wonderful, but in a
show it brought the action to a
near standstill.
As improvisational vehicles,
many songs could not endure the
transition from the loose Dixieland
style of the “Roaring Twenties”
to the smooth swing sound of the
1930’s. They were dropped from jazz
musicians’ catalogs, performances
and recordings and relegated to
period collections and specialty
bands. There are, however, a handful
of songs written in the mid-twenties
or earlier that have persisted as
the topmost jazz standards: W.C.
Handy’s “St.
Louis Blues” (1914); George
and Ira Gershwin’s “The Man I Love”
(1924) and “Oh,
Lady Be Good” (1924); and the
Ken Casey,
Maceo Pinkard,
Ben Bernie composition “Sweet
Georgia Brown” (1925).
|
|
|
|
In William G. Hyland’s
The Song Is Ended: Songwriters and American Music,
1900-1950, the author points out that “The
Man I Love” is the best-known Gershwin example of
a song’s metamorphosis. “It began as a verse to
another song, which was never completed. Ira liked
it and suggested changing it to a refrain, rather
than a verse.”
Written in what amounts to an A1-A2-B-A3 form
(the second and fourth sections are slightly different
from the first) “The Man I Love” has always been
attractive to jazz musicians. The melody is catchy,
the departure in the bridge is surprising, and the
repetition of its four-bar melodic phrases, coupled
with the steadily descending harmony, provides a
predictable basis for improvisational tangents.
-JW
|
Musical analysis of
“The Man I Love”
|
| Original
Key |
Eb major,
turning to C minor during the bridge |
| Form |
A1 – A2 –
B – A3 |
| Tonality |
“A” is major;
“B” is parallel minor. |
| Movement |
The “A” motif
is a step up and down, ending with a skip
up a third, repeated over different harmonies
and on different pitches. “B” starts out
stepwise and then leaps up a sixth, followed
by a step and a skip down and a step up. |
|
Comments
(assumed
background)
|
|
The initial chord progression descends step-wise
in a unique way. The harmonic catalyst is
when the initial I chord turns minor, becoming
a ii7 of the chord below it (in the original
key, Eb – Ebm7 – Db). The next two chord
changes are common-tone ones, as the melody
note–fifth scale degree–becomes the augmented
fifth of the one that follows. The next
chord changes require only the movement
of the bass to become the “Neapolitan” chord
of V7 (a “Neapolitan,” or N6, is a half-step
higher than the chord it resolves to and
is sometimes used as a substitute for the
V7 chord).
“B” is the old “I – II7– V7” progression,
but in the minor, it is given a haunting,
searching quality. The parallel minor here
uses a common-tone, diminished chord to
lead into the ii-V7 progression, returning
the song to the original key.
|
K. J. McElrath - Musicologist for JazzStandards.com
Check out K. J. McElrath's book of Jazz Standards Guide Tone Lines at his web site (www.bardicle.com). |
|
|
I started singing “The Man I Love” when I was
young. I sang it really sweet and cute, a young
girl’s wish, believing a big, strong man would come
along to love me and take care of me, and I’d do
my best to “make him stay.” As I matured the song
took on tragic dimensions, deep longing for something
lost or missed. I sing it differently today.
Nancy
King, jazz vocalist
www.nancykingjazz.com
Are you a published Vocalist or
Instrumentalist?
Add a comment and we'll credit you with a link
to your site. (more...)
|
“The Man I Love”
was included in these films:
- Rhapsody in Blue (1945, Hazel
Scott)
- The Man I Love (1946, Ida
Lupino dubbed by Peg La Centra)
- Young Man with a Horn (1950,
Doris Day, Harry James Orchestra)
- Sincerely Yours (1955, Liberace)
- The Helen Morgan Story (1958,
Ann Blyth dubbed by Gogi Grant)
- Lady Sings the Blues (1972,
Diana Ross)
- New York, New York (1977,
Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro dubbed on sax
by Georgie Auld)
- Hot Shots! (1991, Valeria
Golino)
- Hero (1992)
- About Adam (2000, Kate Hudson)
- For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval
Story (2000, Orquesta Cubana de Musica
Moderna) HBO biopic
And on stage:
- Lady Be Good (1924, Adele
Astaire) withdrawn
- Strike Up the Band (1927,
Vivian Hart, Roger Pryor, reprised as "The Girl
I Love" by Morton Downey) Broadway musical
- Rosalie (1928) (Outtake)
- Who Cares? (1970, New York
City Ballet)
And on television:
- Who Cares? (2004, New York
City Ballet) PBS
|
|
Click on a CD for more details
at Amazon.com
Ella Fitzgerald
Oh, Lady Be Good! The Best of the Gershwin
Songbooks
1996, Polygram 529581
Original recording, 1959
|
| With Nelson Riddle’s arrangement,
this rendition of the song is as close to
perfection as one can get. Fitzgerald’s
elegance does “The Man I Love” justice. |
Betty Carter
Look What I Got
1990, Polygram 835661
Original recording, 1988
|
| Carter was a vocalist in a realm
of her own when interpreting standards.
She makes a narrative of “The Man I Love,”
disregarding the melody at times and dragging
out phrases to emphasize their story qualities.
Several young musicians went through “The
Carter School of Music,” and some of the
graduates appear here: Benny Green (p),
Winard Harper (d), Michael Bowie (b), with
tenor saxophonist Don Braden. |
Zoot Sims
Zoot Sims and the Gershwin Brothers
1991, Orig. Jazz Classics 444
Original recording, 1975
|
| On an album which the
Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD calls
a “glorious sparring match with (Oscar)
Peterson,” Sims proves again his limitless
understanding of the Gershwin’s music. He
revisits “The Man I Love” twenty years after
making a recording of it that stood the
jazz world on its ear. |
Don Shirley Trio
Don Shirley Trio and …Plays Love Songs
1999, Collectables
Original recording, 1960
|
| Pianist Shirley is impossible to
categorize because he incorporates classical,
jazz, spiritual, and folk styles into his
playing. Finally his work is being reissued
on CD. Here he takes “The Man I Love” around
the block with a solo opening and a duo
with cello. Then he picks up the tempo with
bass and finally gives it a full concert
reading at breakneck speed with cello and
bass. |
|
|
Recorded 15 years after its introduction, vocalist
Billie Holiday’s 1939 version of this tune is
a soulful performance, evoking an after-hours atmosphere.
A highlight of this recording is the playing of
her musical soulmate, Lester Young, and sometime
Bing Crosby accompanist Joe Sullivan on piano.
However, it’s Coleman Hawkins’
unique 1943 treatment that surprised the jazz world.
Normally played as a ballad, Hawkins doubled
the tempo for an extended romp. From the first chorus,
by Eddie Heywood, the players eschew the melody
in favor of improvisation. Hawkins, who had a keen
ear for talent, utilizes young lions Oscar Pettiford
on bass and Shelley Manne on drums to round out
the rhythm section.
Chris Tyle - Jazz Musician and Historian
|
This section shows the jazz standards
written by the same writing team. Click on a name
to see all of a writer's jazz standards.
|
|
Additional information on “The Man I Love” may be found in:
1 paragraph including the following types of information: history.
1 paragraph including the following types of information: music analysis and history.
1 paragraph including the following types of information: history.
1 paragraph including the following types of information: film productions, history and performers.
2 pages including the following types of information: music analysis.
1 paragraph including the following types of information: summary, music analysis and performers.
1 paragraph including the following types of information: history and performers.
1 paragraph including the following types of information: Broadway productions, film productions, history, performers and style discussion.
5 pages including the following types of information: anecdotal, history and song lyrics.
4 pages including the following types of information: history and lyric analysis.
Includes the following types of information: song lyrics.
3 paragraphs including the following types of information: history.
1 paragraph including the following types of information: lyric analysis and music analysis.
|
|
