Irving Berlin wrote around 1,500 songs, and for most of his career he couldn’t read music. He played the piano almost entirely in F-sharp, using a special instrument with a lever that shifted the keyboard into other keys.
Berlin was born Israel Beilin on 11 May 1888 in the Russian Empire. His family arrived at Ellis Island on 14 September 1893, when he was about five, and he grew up poor on New York’s Lower East Side.
He made his name in 1911 with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, introduced by Emma Carus, and spent the next six decades writing for Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and Hollywood. His output included scores for 20 original Broadway shows and 15 original Hollywood films. He dictated his melodies to a “musical secretary”, who wrote them down.
Jerome Kern, writing in 1924 to Alexander Woollcott, who was then working on the first Berlin biography, put it this way: “Irving Berlin has no place in American music — he is American music.”
Berlin’s link to jazz goes back to its beginnings. He came up in the ragtime era, and according to the musicologist Jeffrey Magee, composers including George Gershwin credited Berlin’s “Everybody Step” as one of the most important songs for learning jazz. Irving Berlin songs have plain, singable melodies, which leave room for improvisers, and the harmony under some of his ballads is richer than the tunes suggest.
His life also fed directly into his songs. His first wife, Dorothy Goetz, caught typhoid on their honeymoon in Havana in 1912 and died months later, and his grief produced “When I Lost You”, his first ballad. In the 1920s his courtship of the heiress Ellin Mackay, against her father’s wishes, produced several of the Irving Berlin songs below.
For the wider picture beyond these Irving Berlin songs, see our guide to the best jazz songs from the Great American Songbook.
1. “What’ll I Do?”
Berlin wrote “What’ll I Do?” in 1923 for the third edition of his Music Box Revue, staged at the theatre he had built with producer Sam Harris. Grace Moore and John Steel introduced it late in the run, and it was kept for the following year’s edition.
The song is a waltz, which was still common for ballads in the early 1920s. Paul Whiteman’s orchestra recorded it in 1924, and Nat King Cole, Julie London and Frank Sinatra all returned to it in the 1950s and 60s.
Chet Baker recorded it in 1974 for She Was Too Good to Me, the CTI album that also includes “Autumn Leaves” and “Tangerine”.
Classic What’ll I Do? version: Chet Baker (She Was Too Good to Me, 1974)
Modern What’ll I Do? version: Charlie Haden and Brad Mehldau (Long Ago and Far Away, recorded 2007, released 2018)
2. “Remember”
Berlin published “Remember” in 1925, while he was courting Ellin Mackay. Her father, the head of the Postal Telegraph company, disapproved of the match, and Berlin is said to have used this song and “All Alone” to woo her over the radio.
It is another waltz, with a simple melody that jazz players have often converted to 4/4. Red Norvo and Benny Goodman both recorded instrumental versions in the late 1930s, and Billie Holiday sang it in 1953.
One of its best-known jazz recordings came in 1960, when Hank Mobley opened his Blue Note album Soul Station with it, backed by Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Art Blakey. Thelonious Monk recorded a solo version the year before on Thelonious Alone in San Francisco.
The trumpeter Jim Rotondi recorded it in March 2001 for Destination Up! on Sharp Nine, with Steve Davis on trombone, Joe Locke on vibraphone and a rhythm section of Mulgrew Miller, Peter Washington and Joe Farnsworth.
Classic Remember version: Hank Mobley (Soul Station, 1960)
Modern Remember version: Jim Rotondi (Destination Up!, 2001)
3. “Blue Skies”
“Blue Skies” reached Broadway by the back door. In December 1926 the singer Belle Baker was starring in Betsy, a Ziegfeld show with a score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Unhappy with her material, she asked her old friend Berlin for a song, and he gave her one he had just written.
It went into the show without Rodgers and Hart’s agreement. On opening night, 28 December 1926, Baker reportedly took 24 encores, while Betsy itself closed within about a month.
The following year, Al Jolson sang “Blue Skies” in The Jazz Singer, usually described as the first feature-length film with synchronised singing and dialogue. For jazz musicians, the appeal is the minor-key opening that turns to major, over a bass line that descends chromatically. Benny Goodman played a Fletcher Henderson arrangement at his famous Carnegie Hall concert in January 1938.
Classic Blue Skies version: Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, recorded 1938)
Modern Blue Skies version: Bill Charlap Trio (Written in the Stars, 2000)
4. “How Deep Is the Ocean?”
By 1932 Berlin was in a slump. His infant son had died in 1928, and in the years after the Wall Street crash he began to doubt his ability to write. A friend, Max Winslow, gave one of Berlin’s filed-away songs, “Say It Isn’t So”, to Rudy Vallée, and it became a hit.
Encouraged, Berlin wrote “How Deep Is the Ocean?”, borrowing four lines from his 1920 song “To My Mammy”. Almost every line of the lyric is a question. Paul Whiteman had the first chart version in 1932.
The song starts in D minor and ends in the relative major, and it has no real bridge. That shape, together with a melody spanning only about an octave, has made it popular with both singers and horn players. Charlie Parker recorded it for Dial in 1947, and Ben Webster recorded it with Oscar Peterson in 1959.
Classic How Deep Is the Ocean? version: Ben Webster (Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson, 1959)
Modern How Deep Is the Ocean? version: Joshua Redman (Timeless Tales (For Changing Times), 1998)
5. “Cheek to Cheek”
Top Hat (1935) was the first of three films Berlin scored for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and his first complete film score since 1930. According to JazzStandards.com, part of “Cheek to Cheek” began life as “Moon Over Napoli”, written for an unproduced Broadway show, and Berlin reworked it for Astaire.
Astaire’s recording went to number one in 1935, and the song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Berlin gave Astaire the credit for its success.
At 72 bars it is the longest song Berlin wrote, with a section that shifts into the minor before returning home. Jazz musicians were reportedly slow to take it up because of that length, but once they did, versions followed from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday.
Classic Cheek to Cheek version: Billie Holiday (All or Nothing at All, recorded 1956)
Modern Cheek to Cheek version: Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga (Cheek to Cheek, 2014)
6. “Isn’t This a Lovely Day (to Be Caught in the Rain?)”
Also from Top Hat, this is the song Astaire sings to Rogers after she takes shelter in a bandstand when a thunderstorm breaks during her ride. The dance that follows starts with the two of them mocking each other’s steps and ends with a handshake.
The lyric turns the bad weather into an excuse to stay, and the melody is gentle enough for singers to take at a slow, conversational pace. It became a natural duet piece for jazz vocalists.
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong included it on their first album together in 1956, recorded with Oscar Peterson’s rhythm section. For more about that partnership, see our guides to Louis Armstrong and the best Ella Fitzgerald albums.
Classic Isn’t This a Lovely Day version: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (Ella and Louis, 1956)
Modern Isn’t This a Lovely Day version: Stacey Kent (Let Yourself Go, 2000)
7. “Let’s Face the Music and Dance”
Berlin wrote this for Follow the Fleet (1936), the next Astaire and Rogers film after Top Hat. Astaire sings it to Rogers, and the dance that follows was filmed in one continuous shot of almost three minutes. Rogers’ heavily weighted dress hit Astaire in the face during the first take, and he still chose that take out of about twenty.
The song moves between a minor-key opening and a more confident major-key section, and the lyric’s mix of trouble ahead and defiance has kept singers interested. Nat King Cole, Anita O’Day, Sheila Jordan and Chris Connor all recorded it.
Astaire recorded it in New York on 30 January 1936 with Johnny Green’s orchestra, and Brunswick released it the following month. Diana Krall opened her 1999 album When I Look in Your Eyes with it, in an arrangement by Johnny Mandel.
Classic Let’s Face the Music and Dance version: Fred Astaire with Johnny Green and His Orchestra (Brunswick single, 1936)
Modern Let’s Face the Music and Dance version: Diana Krall (When I Look in Your Eyes, 1999)
8. “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”
Berlin wrote this one for the 1937 film On the Avenue, where it was introduced by Dick Powell and Alice Faye. The lyric is about a snowstorm and never mentions Christmas, though Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Dinah Washington all recorded it for Christmas albums.
Billie Holiday recorded it with her orchestra on 12 January 1937, weeks before the film came out. The bandleader Les Brown recorded an instrumental version in 1946, and it became a million-selling hit for him in 1949.
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong sang it as a duet on their second album together, recorded in the summer of 1957 with Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Louie Bellson. In 2008 Tony Bennett recorded it with his daughter Antonia on A Swingin’ Christmas, an album made with the Count Basie Big Band.
Classic I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm version: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (Ella and Louis Again, 1957)
Modern I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm version: Tony Bennett with Antonia Bennett (A Swingin’ Christmas, 2008)
9. “Change Partners”
Berlin wrote “Change Partners” for Carefree (1938), another Astaire and Rogers film. Astaire introduced it, and his recording was made on 24 March 1938. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost to “Thanks for the Memory”.
The lyric is addressed to a woman dancing every dance with the same man, asking her to change partners and dance with the singer instead. The melody is a long, smooth line that sits well on a saxophone or a vocal.
Frank Sinatra recorded it in 1967 with Antônio Carlos Jobim, turning it into a bossa nova. Fred Hersch recorded it with his trio in 2007, on an album that also includes “How Deep Is the Ocean?”.
Classic Change Partners version: Frank Sinatra and Antônio Carlos Jobim (Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim, 1967)
Modern Change Partners version: Fred Hersch Trio (Night & the Music, 2007)
10. “They Say It’s Wonderful”
Annie Get Your Gun was meant to be a Jerome Kern score. When Kern died in November 1945, the producers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II gave the job to Berlin, and the show opened in 1946 with Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley.
“They Say It’s Wonderful” is one of the show’s love songs, shared by Annie and Frank Butler, the rival sharpshooter she falls for. The lyric has Annie wondering whether falling in love is as good as people say.
One of its best-known jazz versions came on 7 March 1963, when John Coltrane and the singer Johnny Hartman recorded it as the opening track of their only album together. Hartman had told the producer Bob Thiele that he did not consider himself a jazz singer, and by his own account every song except “You Are Too Beautiful” was done in one take.
In January 2009 Kurt Elling recorded all six songs from the Coltrane and Hartman album, along with others, at Jazz at Lincoln Center for Dedicated to You.
Classic They Say It’s Wonderful version: John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, 1963)
Modern They Say It’s Wonderful version: Kurt Elling (Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman, 2009)
Berlin officially retired after his 1962 Broadway show Mr. President, but came back to write “An Old-Fashioned Wedding” for the 1966 revival of Annie Get Your Gun. His marriage to Ellin Mackay, who had eloped with him in 1926 against her father’s wishes, lasted until her death in July 1988. He gave her the rights to “Always”, one of the songs he wrote while falling in love with her, as a wedding present.
He died in New York on 22 September 1989, aged 101. He had almost never appeared in public since the late 1960s, and his songs had been recorded by everyone from Bing Crosby to John Coltrane.
Looking for more about the great songwriters of jazz? We highlighted 10 of them here.
Which other Irving Berlin songs would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
Featured image: Al Aumuller, World Telegram staff photographer, Public domain, adapted, via Wikimedia Commons
