“The vow that will betray,” “the passions that kill love,” and “the light that gave you glory, will take it all away.” Such is the case with “Softly.” The song likens the beginning of a love affair to a sunrise, but at the end of each phrase there is a line that implies that the affair will someday end. It is not unusual that circumstances in lyricists’ lives are reflected in the material they are working on. Hammerstein’s lyrics were written during a time of personal upheaval in his life. In the modern era the song is often approached in a more harmonically adventurous, modal, manner, and that approach can be best traced to John Coltrane’s quartet at the Village Vanguard in 1961 ( Live at the Village Vanguard) in a recording that addressed the tune quite differently than Bobby Timmons or Sonny Rollins, who recorded “Softly” at the same club. Abbey Lincoln’s haunting 1958 vocal recording ( Abbey Is Blue), meanwhile, is an excellent place to begin when learning the song in a more straightforward manner and a great example of how the song is approached in a small group. “Softly As in a Morning Sunrise.” These recordings have been selected from the Jazz History andĪrtie Shaw’s 1938 recording of “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise” ( King of the Clarinet 1938-39) is the first noteworthy jazz version of the song and is perhaps the classic pre-bop example of this tune. This section suggests definitive or otherwise significant recordings that will help jazz students get acquainted with But New Moon had incredible staying power and has successfully been revived a number of times on Broadway, the last time in 2004. After the productions closed, he, like many other composers, saw the handwriting on the wall that Hollywood was the place to be. New Moon was the last operetta that Sigmund Romberg composed. The 1940 version featured the singing team of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. MGM redid the film in 1940, changing the locale back to the original. The ultimate success of New Moon led to an MGM film version in 1931 starring Grace Moore and Lawrence Tibbett, although the setting was changed from late-18th century New Orleans to Russia. The show flopped and in the intervening five months the two composers came up with what would be the two big hits.

Oddly enough, neither of the two big hits (“Softly.” and “Lover, Come Back.”) were in the original production that premiered in Cleveland. The presentation of “Softly.” in New Moon was more in the nature of an operatic performance, which seems to have hindered its adaptation by dance orchestras. Nat Shilkret and His Orchestra (as The Troubadors) (1929, Franklin Baur, vocal, #5)Ĭhart information used by permission from Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories 1890-1954 “Softly.” didn’t fare as well, with only this one recording: Another song from the musical, “ Lover, Come Back to Me,” was recorded by a number of artists and had three recordings in the charts for 1929. Actor Robert Halliday introduced the song in the show. Sigmund Romberg wrote the music and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the words for this composition for the musical New Moon, which premiered in New York at the Imperial Theater on September 19, 1928.

“More than any other leader of the big band era, clarinetist Artie Shaw was responsible for introducing Broadway show compositions into the jazz repertoire.”

Morning sunrise