Klarinet Archive - Posting 000099.txt from 1997/01

From: Klaus Pehl <Pehl@-----.de>
Subj: Benny Goodman-Memories Of You
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 04:25:34 -0500

Hallo Katie,
playing traditional jazz on clarinet myself I admire Benny Goodman
very much. I use transcriptions of his recordings with his orchestra
in my own big band, mostly Fletcher Henderson arrangements.
We love to feature the clarinet in a small unit. If the tempo has to slowed
down, he plays usually "Memories Of You" the way Benny Goodman used
to play it. But:

Memories of You is composed by Eubie Blake in 1930 for a music show
"Blackbirds of 1930" (In the film "The Benny Goodman Sory" from the fifties
you get the impression Benny composed it. It is used in the final scene
preparing the happy end between benny and his fianc@-----.)

The lyrics came from Andy Razaf who is famous for his
colloboration with Fats Waller. In the music show Ethel Waters sang the=
tune,
which seems to be quite a task because the range is an octave plus a fifth.
There is a famous Louis Armstrong recording from 1930 and I read that=
Memories
of You was a show tune for the high note trumpeter Sonny Dunham with Glen=
Gray
and his Casa Loma Orchestra some years before Benny Goodman recorded it.

The music (singer-piano-version) was copyrighted by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co,
New York,
in 1930 and renewed in 1957. It is printed for example in a folio

The Big Bands Songbook. Compilation and text by George T. Simon. Barnes &
Noble Books,=20
New York 1981. ISBN 0-06-464049-3

In this edition the verse is missing. Eb seems to be the original key.=20
Benny Goodman played it in this key to, but he did not use the verse, only
the chorus.
The complete edition is printed in another folio. Unfortunately I just
borrowed it to a friend
so I cannot give you the details. I will as soon as I get it back.

Klaus Pehl

   
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