Artie Shaw and his orchestra performing “Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise”, recorded November 17, 1938 in New York City.

The JGC History series features specifically curated playlists to help trace the lineage of some of the most influential jazz compositions of all time.

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Some notes about the composition as found on
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Composer: Sigmund Romberg

Lyricist: Oscar Hammerstein II

Year: 1928

Origin: Introduced in the Operetta The New Moon.

Style: Almost always swung, it is taken at a wide variety of tempos.

Form: A-A-B-A (32 Bars) [8-8-8-8]

Key: Most commonly played in C minor.

Harmony/Overview: The harmony of this composition is very functional, and along with the melody remains almost entirely diatonic. The tune has an almost modal-like quality with the entirety of the A sections taking place in the relative minor, using a variety of turnaround to generate movement. The bridge modulates to the relative Major and inches upward with passing diminished chords before another IImi7b5 - V7 resolves back to the relative minor for the final A section.

Recordings: This song has been recorded over 400 times. It was first introduced in the 1928 Operetta The New Moon, and the first recording would come from Nat Shilkret the same year. Artie Shaw was one of the first band leaders to see the potential of this tune in a jazz context, and soon enough it began to gain traction as a popular vehicle for improvisation among other leading musicians of the day. It remains a widely popular standard in the repertoire that continues to be performed frequently.

JGC Top Picks:
John Coltrane, Coltrane "Live" at the Village Vanguard, 1961
Larry Young, Unity, 1965
John Scofield, John Scofield Live, 1977

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