Cole Porter wrote about 300 songs while he was still a student at Yale. Like Irving Berlin, and later Frank Loesser, he wrote both the music and the lyrics, and jazz musicians have been working through both ever since.
Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, on 9 June 1891, into a wealthy family. At Yale he was an early member of the Whiffenpoofs and president of the Glee Club, and he enrolled at Harvard Law School before switching to music.
In 1917 he moved to Paris. He married the socialite Linda Lee Thomas in 1919, and for most of the 1920s he had little success on Broadway.
That changed in 1928, and from then until the mid-1950s Porter wrote hit after hit for Broadway and Hollywood. His lyrics are full of jokes, lists and double meanings, but the melodies are often in minor keys, with long phrases and odd song lengths.
Jazz players have taken to that side of his writing. Several Cole Porter songs move between major and minor, which gives improvisers more to work with, and one of them gave Tadd Dameron the chords for the bebop tune “Hot House”. As the ragtime pianist and writer Max Morath put it, “Jazz musicians go for it–they love most anything of Porter’s.”
1. “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love”
Porter’s first Broadway success was Paris (1928), a show produced by Ray Goetz to star his wife, the French singer Irène Bordoni. She introduced “Let’s Do It”, and Porter’s career in America started there.
The song is a list, with birds, bees, fish and assorted animals all doing “it”. Porter came back to the list song often, most famously in “You’re the Top”. The opening of the original 1928 chorus used ethnic slurs, which many early recordings kept, until the radio networks replaced them with milder lines.
Singers have rewritten it ever since. Noël Coward wrote his own set of verses for his Las Vegas act in 1955.
Billie Holiday recorded it in 1941, and Ella Fitzgerald included it on her Cole Porter Song Book in 1956. Louis Armstrong recorded it in 1957 with Oscar Peterson’s group, as one of his solo features on Ella and Louis Again. Peterson’s own records are covered in our guide to Oscar Peterson.
Classic “Let’s Do It” version: Louis Armstrong with Oscar Peterson (Ella and Louis Again, 1957)
Modern “Let’s Do It” version: Dee Dee Bridgewater (Dear Ella, 1997)
2. “What Is This Thing Called Love?”
Elsie Carlisle introduced this song in London on 27 March 1929, in the Porter revue Wake Up and Dream. When the show reached Broadway that December, Frances Shelley sang it.
Porter claimed that the song’s switches between major and minor came from a native dance he had heard in Morocco. JazzStandards.com points out that nothing in the lyric mentions Morocco.
Tadd Dameron wrote his bebop tune “Hot House” on these chords, and Lee Konitz used them for “Subconscious-Lee”. More on that generation can be found in our guide to the best bebop musicians and albums.
Jazz musicians usually play it fast. Clifford Brown and Max Roach, with Sonny Rollins on tenor, recorded a well-known uptempo version on At Basin Street in 1956. Bill Evans included it on Portrait in Jazz in 1959.
Classic “What Is This Thing Called Love?” version: Clifford Brown and Max Roach (At Basin Street, 1956)
Modern “What Is This Thing Called Love?” version: Jacky Terrasson and Stefon Harris (Kindred, 2001)
3. “Love for Sale”
The New Yorkers opened in December 1930. In it Kathryn Crawford sang “Love for Sale” as a streetwalker, with three other women, in front of Reuben’s restaurant.
The critic Charles Darnton wrote that the song was “in the worst possible taste”. It was kept off the radio, which only helped sales, and Libby Holman’s recording reached number five in 1931. A month into the run, the Black singer Elizabeth Welch took over the number and the scene was moved to Harlem, outside the Cotton Club.
The song is longer than standard, at about 72 bars, and moves between B flat minor and B flat major. JazzStandards.com suggests the length kept jazz musicians away at first.
That changed in the 1950s. Cannonball Adderley’s version on Somethin’ Else (1958), with Miles Davis on trumpet, is played at a relaxed medium tempo. Dexter Gordon recorded a fast one on Go! in 1962.
Classic “Love for Sale” version: Cannonball Adderley with Miles Davis (Somethin’ Else, 1958)
Modern “Love for Sale” version: Joshua Redman (Timeless Tales (For Changing Times), 1998)
4. “Night and Day”
On 29 November 1932 Fred Astaire introduced “Night and Day” with Claire Luce in Gay Divorce, his last Broadway show. A week earlier he had recorded it with Leo Reisman’s orchestra. Victor released the record in January 1933, and it became the top-selling record of that year.
Porter gave several accounts of where the idea came from, including an Islamic prayer he had heard in Morocco. Will Friedwald tells a different story, involving a rainy night in Newport and a broken drainpipe.
The verse keeps returning to a single repeated note, B flat, over shifting chords. The chorus is 48 bars long, rather than the usual 32.
Billie Holiday recorded it on 13 December 1939, with Lester Young and Buck Clayton in the band. In her 1956 autobiography she called it “the toughest song in the world for me to sing.”
In 1995 the alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett recorded it without a piano, in a trio with Charnett Moffett on bass and Brian Blade on drums, for Triology.
Classic “Night and Day” version: Billie Holiday (Vocalion single, 1939)
Modern “Night and Day” version: Kenny Garrett (Triology, 1995)
5. “I Get a Kick Out of You”
Porter wrote this in 1931 for a show called Star Dust that was never produced. Three years later he put it into Anything Goes, which opened in November 1934 and ran for 420 performances, with Ethel Merman singing it.
The original lyric included a line about cocaine. The Hollywood Production Code would not allow it in the 1936 film, and in later years singers swapped in “perfume from Spain”, the version Frank Sinatra used.
Around 90 per cent of the melody moves by step, and the triplets in the main phrase give it a forward push. Charlie Parker recorded it for Verve in 1954, and his version was later collected on The Cole Porter Songbook.
Classic “I Get a Kick Out of You” version: Charlie Parker (Verve, 1954, collected on The Cole Porter Songbook)
Modern “I Get a Kick Out of You” version: Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga (Love for Sale, 2021)
6. “Begin the Beguine”
Porter wrote “Begin the Beguine” in 1935 during a world cruise. June Knight introduced it in Jubilee that October, and at first it got little attention.
At 104 bars, it is more than three times the length of a typical 32-bar popular song. Chris Tyle has written that “some musicians found the tune’s length and unusual format daunting.”
In July 1938 Artie Shaw recorded a Jerry Gray arrangement for Bluebird, issued as the B-side of “Indian Love Call” because RCA Victor doubted listeners would remember such a long tune. It became a big seller, and JazzStandards.com says it sold in the millions.
Charlie Parker recorded a Latin-rhythm version in 1952, and Django Reinhardt recorded it in Rome in 1949.
Classic “Begin the Beguine” version: Artie Shaw and His Orchestra (Bluebird single, 1938)
Modern “Begin the Beguine” version: Tuck Andress (Reckless Precision, 1990)
7. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
Virginia Bruce introduced this in the MGM film Born to Dance (1936). It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost to Jerome Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight”.
The song has no verse and its melody covers a twelfth. Its climax doesn’t arrive until bar 27. Porter noted in his diary, as quoted in George Eells’s biography, that “I took in ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ and they all liked it very much.”
Frank Sinatra first sang it on his radio show in 1946. His 1956 recording for Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! used a Nelson Riddle arrangement that Riddle said was inspired by Ravel’s Boléro, and it builds to a trombone solo by Milt Bernhart.
Jazz instrumentalists have recorded it too. Sonny Rollins played it at the Village Vanguard in 1957, and Bill Evans and Jim Hall included it on Intermodulation in 1966.
Classic “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” version: Frank Sinatra (Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, 1956)
Modern “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” version: Diana Krall (When I Look in Your Eyes, 1999)
8. “I Love You”
According to Charles Schwartz’s biography, Porter wrote “I Love You” on a bet with the actor Monty Woolley. Woolley challenged him to write a hit that repeated the words “I love you” all the way through.
Wilbur Evans sang it in Mexican Hayride in 1944, and Bing Crosby’s recording spent five weeks at number one. The melody opens with a falling major seventh and then a jump up by a sixth, and in bar 13 it moves suddenly from F major to A major.
Jazz players took it up in the mid-1950s. Bill Evans included it on New Jazz Conceptions (1956), his first album as a leader. John Coltrane recorded a trio version in 1957, and Chris Tyle credits that recording with making it a jazz standard. Art Pepper also recorded it in 1960, for the album Intensity; we look at more of his records in our guide to Art Pepper albums.
Classic “I Love You” version: Bill Evans (New Jazz Conceptions, 1956)
Modern “I Love You” version: Keith Jarrett Trio (The Out-of-Towners, 2004)
9. “From This Moment On”
Porter wrote this in 1950 for Out of This World. The director George Abbott cut it before the Broadway opening.
It reached the screen three years later in MGM’s film of Kiss Me Kate, where Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Bob Fosse and Bobby Van performed it. Porter’s stage version of Kiss Me Kate had opened in 1948 and won the first Tony Award for best musical.
Ella Fitzgerald recorded it for the Cole Porter Song Book in 1956, with Buddy Bregman’s orchestra. You’ll find that album in our guide to the best Ella Fitzgerald albums. Frank Sinatra swung it on A Swingin’ Affair! a year later.
Classic “From This Moment On” version: Ella Fitzgerald (Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book, 1956)
Modern “From This Moment On” version: Brad Mehldau (Introducing Brad Mehldau, 1995)
10. “It’s All Right with Me”
Peter Cookson introduced this song in Can-Can (1953), in the role of Judge Aristide Forestier.
Pianists especially like it. Erroll Garner played a fast version at Carmel-by-the-Sea on 19 September 1955 for Concert by the Sea, and Brad Mehldau later used it to open Art of the Trio Volume Two (1998).
Ella Fitzgerald recorded it for her Porter songbook, Chris Connor sang it on This Is Chris (1955), and the tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec included it on Blue and Sentimental in 1961.
Classic “It’s All Right with Me” version: Erroll Garner (Concert by the Sea, 1955)
Modern “It’s All Right with Me” version: Harry Connick Jr. (We Are in Love, 1990)
Cole Porter’s later years
On 24 October 1937, at the Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, New York, Porter’s horse fell and rolled on him, crushing both legs. He was in pain for the rest of his life, but he went on writing, and Kiss Me Kate, Can-Can and Silk Stockings all came after the accident.
Linda died in 1954. Four years later, after 34 operations, Porter’s right leg was amputated, and he wrote little after that. His last score was for the 1958 CBS television musical Aladdin.
He died of kidney failure in Santa Monica, California, on 15 October 1964, aged 73. If you’re working through the songbook, George Gershwin is a good next stop: here are ten George Gershwin songs jazz musicians play, and our list of the best jazz songs covers many more.
Looking for more about the great songwriters of jazz? We highlighted 10 of them here.
Which other Cole Porter songs would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
Featured image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
