Harold Arlen was a cantor’s son from Buffalo who sang in his father’s synagogue choir by the age of seven. Within a few years of moving to New York, he was writing the floor shows at Harlem’s Cotton Club.
He was born Hyman Arluck in 1905, and by fifteen he was a working pianist and entertainer in nightclubs and on Lake Erie steamers. In his late teens he formed a trio that became the Southbound Shufflers, and the band took him to New York.
There he worked as a singer, pianist and arranger, played in the pit orchestra for George White’s Scandals of 1928, and recorded as a band vocalist from 1926 until about 1934. He knew how songs sounded from the bandstand before he ever wrote one.
Like Gershwin, Arlen wrote with a blues accent, and his first hits were written for the all-Black revues at the Cotton Club, where the Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway orchestras played. The Songwriters Hall of Fame sums up his gift as “writing extraordinarily complex melodies and harmonies that somehow remained accessible to a broad popular audience.”
That mix is why jazz players keep returning to Harold Arlen songs. Ella Fitzgerald recorded two dozen of his songs for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book (1961, arranged by Billy May), one of the records we cover in our guide to the best Ella Fitzgerald albums, and Oscar Peterson recorded a whole album of Arlen songs in the 1950s.
His lyricists included Ted Koehler, Yip Harburg, Ira Gershwin, Truman Capote and Johnny Mercer, whose own catalogue we cover in our list of Johnny Mercer songs. Several of these Harold Arlen songs also sit high on our list of the best jazz songs.
1. “Get Happy”
In 1929, while working as rehearsal pianist for Vincent Youmans’s Great Day, Arlen played a vamp to cue the dancers. Harry Warren urged him to turn it into a song and introduced him to the lyricist Ted Koehler. The repeated rhythmic figure suggested a phrase Koehler knew from gospel singing, and that phrase became the title.
It was their first song together. The singer Ruth Etting put it into the Broadway show 9:15 Revue in 1930, and while the show floundered, the song caught on.
“Get Happy” earned Arlen a year-long songwriting contract with the Piantadosi publishing firm. Judy Garland revived it in 1950 as a song-and-dance number in the film Summer Stock.
Jazz players like its bright, simple harmony. In the original key the first A section is in E-flat and the second moves up to A-flat for a few bars. Art Tatum recorded it solo in 1940, and Bud Powell and Sonny Rollins both took it at speed in the 1950s.
Classic “Get Happy” version: Bud Powell (Jazz Giant, 1950)
Modern “Get Happy” version: Brad Mehldau Trio (Anything Goes, 2004)
2. “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”
In March 1931 the Cotton Club opened a revue called Rhyth-Mania, the first of four shows Arlen and Koehler wrote for the club. The singer Aida Ward introduced this song, and Cab Calloway’s orchestra, which was featured in the show, recorded it in October that year.
Louis Armstrong cut his version in January 1932, with a trumpet solo, and the Boswell Sisters recorded it with the Dorsey Brothers a couple of months later.
The A section is a variation on the “rhythm changes” progression from Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”, with a chromatic, bluesy line on top. The bridge is the surprise: it lurches from the home key of F up to A, a jump that keeps soloists on their toes.
Thelonious Monk recorded it on Straight, No Chaser (1967), and Diana Krall put it on her debut album for Justin Time, with John Clayton on bass and Jeff Hamilton on drums.
Classic “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” version: Louis Armstrong (Columbia single, 1932)
Modern “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” version: Diana Krall (Stepping Out, 1993)
3. “I’ve Got the World on a String”
The Cotton Club’s 21st revue opened on 23 October 1932 and was billed as the first Cotton Club Parade. Arlen and Koehler wrote the score, and Cab Calloway, again leading the house band, took “I’ve Got the World on a String” to number 18 on the charts that year.
The bridge sits almost entirely on one repeated note.
Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby both recorded it in 1933. Twenty years later, in April 1953, Frank Sinatra recorded it with Nelson Riddle, and the single reached number 14 on Billboard’s most-played chart.
Classic “I’ve Got the World on a String” version: Louis Armstrong (single, 1933)
Modern “I’ve Got the World on a String” version: Diana Krall (Only Trust Your Heart, 1995)
4. “Stormy Weather”
Arlen and Koehler wrote “Stormy Weather” with Cab Calloway in mind, but Calloway had left the Cotton Club by the time the 1933 Cotton Club Parade was being put together. Duke Ellington’s band came back, and since Ellington didn’t sing, the producers needed a star vocalist. Ethel Waters took the job.
The show opened on 6 April 1933 and, by most accounts, Waters was called back for twelve encores. “I was singing the story of my misery and confusion,” she later said of that night.
Arlen himself had already recorded the song as the vocalist with Leo Reisman’s orchestra at a Victor session in late February 1933, before the show opened. Ellington recorded it the same year, and you can find more of his work from this period in our list of Duke Ellington songs.
George Gershwin reportedly pointed out to Arlen that the song had two extra bars before the bridge. Arlen said he hadn’t noticed.
Lena Horne made it her signature song in the 1940s, and Charles Mingus recorded it twice, once in 1954 and again in 1960 with Eric Dolphy.
Classic “Stormy Weather” version: Ethel Waters (Brunswick single, 1933)
Modern “Stormy Weather” version: Joni Mitchell with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock (Both Sides Now, 2000)
5. “It’s Only a Paper Moon”
This song started life as “If You Believed in Me”, written for The Great Magoo, a 1932 Broadway play by Ben Hecht and Gene Fowler set in Coney Island. Claire Carleton sang it on 2 December 1932, and the play did not last.
Yip Harburg and Billy Rose wrote the lyric. Under its new title the song turned up in the 1933 film Take a Chance, Paul Whiteman had a hit with it in 1933, but its lasting fame came in the last years of the Second World War, when a string of popular singers revived it.
Ella Fitzgerald’s version with the Delta Rhythm Boys was recorded for Decca on 27 March 1945. The song also became associated with Nat King Cole, which is why it appears on two 1990s tributes to him, by John Pizzarelli and by George Shearing.
Classic “It’s Only a Paper Moon” version: Ella Fitzgerald and the Delta Rhythm Boys (Decca single, 1945)
Modern “It’s Only a Paper Moon” version: John Pizzarelli (Dear Mr. Cole, 1994)
6. “Ill Wind”
Arlen and Koehler wrote “Ill Wind” for the 1934 Cotton Club Parade, the last revue they wrote for the club. Adelaide Hall introduced it, and Arlen sang it himself on a record with Eddy Duchin’s orchestra that reached number three.
Musicians admire it for its harmony. The musicologist Allen Forte wrote that “in many ways, beginning with its phrase organization, ‘Ill Wind’ is a remarkable song for 1934,” and noted that the chords in the opening bars don’t fit conventional analysis. Alec Wilder, in his study of American popular song, called it “unique and inspired.”
Frank Sinatra sang it on In the Wee Small Hours (1955), and Billie Holiday recorded it for All or Nothing at All (1958). Ben Webster recorded it as a tenor saxophone ballad on Soulville.
Classic “Ill Wind” version: Ben Webster (Soulville, 1957)
Modern “Ill Wind” version: Norah Jones with Charlie Haden Quartet West (Sophisticated Ladies, 2010)
7. “Over the Rainbow”
By the biographer Walter Rimler’s account, Arlen had been stuck for weeks on a ballad for MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. He asked his wife, Anya, to drive them to a film at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and as they passed Schwab’s Drug Store on Sunset Boulevard he had her pull over so he could write the melody down.
Yip Harburg wasn’t convinced. “I love the tune but I can’t write it for a little girl,” he told Arlen. Ira Gershwin suggested Arlen play it with more rhythm, and once he did, Harburg heard how it could suit a Kansas farm girl.
MGM cut the song from the film more than once because executives felt it slowed the picture down. The producer Arthur Freed told the studio: “Rainbow stays or I go.” Judy Garland sang it, and it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
The famous octave leap on the first two notes is the hook, and the A sections give pianists room to reharmonise. Art Tatum and Bud Powell both recorded it solo, and Art Pepper played it alone on stage at the Village Vanguard in 1977.
Classic “Over the Rainbow” version: Art Tatum (20th Century Piano Genius, recorded 1950–55)
Modern “Over the Rainbow” version: Keith Jarrett (La Scala, 1997)
8. “My Shining Hour”
Arlen and Mercer wrote “My Shining Hour” for the 1943 film The Sky’s the Limit, starring Fred Astaire. Astaire introduced it with Sally Sweetland, who dubbed the singing voice of the actress Joan Leslie.
It was nominated for the Best Song Oscar and lost to “You’ll Never Know”. In 1944 Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, with Eugenie Baird singing, had a number four hit with it. The title may nod to Winston Churchill’s “finest hour” speech, though that has never been confirmed.
John Coltrane took it at a brisk tempo on Coltrane Jazz (1961), and Bill Charlap’s trio played it at the Village Vanguard in 2003. Its long, even phrases make it a good vehicle for a horn or a piano trio.
Classic “My Shining Hour” version: John Coltrane (Coltrane Jazz, 1961)
Modern “My Shining Hour” version: Bill Charlap Trio (Live at the Village Vanguard, 2007)
9. “Come Rain or Come Shine”
St. Louis Woman opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on 30 March 1946. It was an all-Black musical based on Arna Bontemps’ novel God Sends Sunday, and it closed after 113 performances. Ruby Hill and Harold Nicholas introduced this song.
The show had a troubled start. MGM had lent it Lena Horne, who withdrew after the NAACP objected to the roles. According to the critic Mark Steyn, Arlen played Mercer a phrase built on one repeated note, Mercer answered with a line to fit it, and Arlen asked, “Come hell or high water?” Mercer laughed and said, “Of course!” Mercer later described the result as “a really simple way of saying ‘I love you’.”
Musically it is unusual. The melody leans on long runs of repeated notes, and the song begins in F major but ends in D minor.
Clifford Brown, Art Blakey, Art Pepper and Wes Montgomery all recorded it, and Ray Charles sang it on The Genius of Ray Charles (1959). The Bill Evans Trio version with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian reharmonises it quietly.
Classic “Come Rain or Come Shine” version: Bill Evans Trio (Portrait in Jazz, recorded 1959)
Modern “Come Rain or Come Shine” version: André Previn and Sylvia McNair (Come Rain or Come Shine: The Harold Arlen Songbook, 1996)
10. “A Sleepin’ Bee”
House of Flowers opened at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway on 30 December 1954 and ran for 165 performances. Truman Capote wrote the book, adapted from his own short story, and the lyrics with Arlen.
The story concerns two rival bordellos on a Caribbean island modelled on Haiti. Pearl Bailey starred, and a young Diahann Carroll, making her Broadway debut, introduced “A Sleepin’ Bee”.
The show was a flop, but the song found a second life with jazz musicians. Bill Evans recorded it several times, including on Trio 64 and at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the trumpeter Art Farmer made it the title track of an album recorded in 1974.
Classic “A Sleepin’ Bee” version: Bill Evans Trio (Trio 64, 1964)
Modern “A Sleepin’ Bee” version: Jeff Hamilton Trio (Red Sparkle, 2012)
Arlen’s later years
Arlen kept writing into the 1950s. For the 1954 film A Star Is Born he and Ira Gershwin wrote “The Man That Got Away” after the screenwriter Moss Hart asked for a “dive song”. Arlen built it from an unfinished tune he had started with Johnny Mercer, and Judy Garland sang it.
His later Broadway shows included Jamaica (1957) and Saratoga (1959). In 1982 the Songwriters Hall of Fame gave him its highest honour, the Johnny Mercer Award.
He died of cancer at his Manhattan apartment on 23 April 1986, aged 81, and was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, next to his wife Anya. Irving Berlin said of him: “He wasn’t as well known as some of us, but he was a better songwriter than most of us and he will be missed by all of us.”
Looking for more about the great songwriters of jazz? We highlighted 10 of them here.
Which other Harold Arlen songs would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
