Monday, December 12, 2016

Night And Day - Noche Y Día

Original sheet music front (1932)
Night And Day is a popular song by Cole Porter. It was written for the 1932 musical play Gay Divorce. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook and has been recorded by dozens of artists. Fred Astaire introduced Night And Day on stage, and his recording of the song with the Leo Reisman orchestra was a no.1 hit, topping the charts of the day for ten weeks. 
Original film poster (1934)
Fred Astaire performed Night And Day again in the 1934 film version of the show, renamed The Gay Divorcee, and it became one of his signature pieces.
Original film poster (1946)
Night And Day was so associated with Cole Porter, that when Hollywood first filmed his life story in 1946, the movie was entitled Night and Day.

The musical structure of Night and Day is unusual for a hit song of the 1930s. Most popular tunes then featured 32-bar choruses, divided into four 8-bar sections, usually with an AABA musical structure, the B section representing the bridge. Porter's song, on the other hand, has a chorus of 48 bars, divided into six sections of eight bars—ABABCB—with section C representing the bridge. (info above excerpted from Wikipedia, here ).

As mentioned, Night And Day has been recorded by numerous artists, both as an instrumental and with Porter's lyrics by various vocalists. I prefer various instrumental versions of the song, and one of my all time favorite instrumental recordings of Night And Day was recorded by Oscar Alemán y su Orquesta de Jazz for Odeon (Odeon 74265, mx 20199) as Noche Y Día on May 30, 1955. The guitar solo (- of 80 bars, partly with ensemble) belongs to one of Alemán's superior contributions, a marvellous interpretation of a romantic ballad played as a fox-trot in medium tempo artistically at the same high level as his version of Stardust (Polvo de estrellas) with the Quinteto de Swing from October 1944. - Enjoy Alemán's Night And Day/Noche Y Día here

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Jo
keepitswinging.domain@gmail.com

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