Autumn in New York

... and not just there but everywhere in the Northern hemisphere. Except Autumn leaves, Autumn in New York is the most famous jazz standard about the time of fall. In this song the lyrics isn't about the lost love and the sorrow, it's about the status when a big town is getting surrounded by a new, magical season. And because in NY everything is the most-most-most, autumn is also had to be wonderful there, and the song is an additional proof for it. It was written in 1934 by Vernon Duke and also performed by many musicians and singers.

Jazzstandard.com tells us "Vernon Duke’s composition was written for the 1934 showThumbs Up! and introduced by J. Harold Murray. Thirteen years later it rose to number 27 on the pop charts thanks to a fine vocal version by Frank Sinatra."

Autumn in New York
Why does it seem so inviting?
Autumn in New York
It spells the thrill of first-knighting

Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds
In canyons of steel
They're making me feel
I'm home

It's autumn in New York
That brings the promise of new love
Autumn in New York
Is often mingled with pain

Dreamers with empty hands
May sigh for exotic lands
It's autumn in New York
It's good to live it again

Lovers that bless the dark
On benches in Central Park
It's autumn in New York
It's good to live it again

Some albums on which you can hear it:

• Ahmad Jamal Trio - Ahmad's blues
• Billie Holiday - Lady in autumn - The best of the Verve years
• Bud Powell - The amazing Bud Powell, vol. 2.
• Buddy Defranco - Mr. Clarinet
• Charlie Parker - Charlie Parker with strings -the master takes
• Chet Baker Quartet - Jazz in Paris, vol. 53.
• Dexter Gordon - Autumn in New York
• Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - Ella and Louis again
• Frank Sinatra - Come fly with me
• Jo Stafford - Autumn in New York and other classics
• John Stetch - Heavens of a hundred days
• Kenny Barron - New York attitude
• Mel Tormé - Songs of New York
• Phineas Newborn Jr - Phineas' rainbow
• Shelly Manne - The three and the two
• Sonny Stitt - Autumn in New York
• Stan Kenton - Portraits on standards
• Sun Ra - The Sun Ra Sextet at the Village Vaungard
• The Hi-Lo's - Love nest / All over the place
• The Modern Jazz Quartet - Django

Some videos - Autumn in New York, performance by:

• Ella and Louis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50zL8TnMBN8
• Billie Holiday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS3ZTVeqJjA
• Frank Sinatra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WohRBN5oflE

Read more about it here.

More standards about autumn: Autumn leaves, September in the rain, September song.

Preparing for autumn

Autumn is my fave season. Especially September. Then the colour of light changes, the dark yellow turns into pale yellow, the warmness decreases a little, and silence sets. Beautiful landscapes are being created then. And a new season gets new music in our minds, too. Autumn is for me about the revival of jazz and progressive rock, which I rarely listen to in the summertime. Soul's got to move into the background.

For example, as Septembers defeats August, I always listen to Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' else. On that album you can hear the best performance of the jazz standard, Autumn leaves. In the autumn I really like jazz standards. I recommend Billie Holiday's Recorded from Carnegie Hall live, that's cool for early autumn evenings, when the Sun disappears sooner and sooner each day. Horace Silver's Song for my father and Herbie Hancock's Maiden voyage are also connected to fall in my thoughts. The first because its cover and also the slight mysterious mood that crawls into the melodies and cause uncertainty, the second because that's really contemplative*. Coltrane's music has to be listened to again, too, starting with for ex. Ballads then heading on more serious pieces. I'll also pick Chick Corea and Return to forever's Light as a feather, and of course, the season autumn, more precisely the colder, darker kind of it is also the ECM season, as I called it earlier. But the transition between summer and winter isn't only about people turning inside and becoming contemplative, more silent, and calmer. The calmness often walks with doubt, uncertainty hand in hand, and that side of autumn is represented by progressive rock for me. I think about King Crimson's Lizard, Islands, Emerson, Lake & Palmer's ELP, some Pink Floyd albums...

More:

Gabor Szabo - Spellbinder

Al Di Meola - Elegant gypsy

Sophie Zelmani - Love affair

Kuupuu - Unilintu

* "Autumn in poetry has often been associated with melancholy. The possibilities of summer are gone, and the chill of winter is on the horizon. Skies turn grey, and people turn inward, both physically and mentally." (Wikipedia)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

(John Keats - To autumn (first verse))

Have a nice autumn.