"BODY AND SOUL" (1930)

It’s hard to overstate the influence "Body and Soul" has had on jazz. It probably is the most recorded of all jazz songs, with nearly 3,000 versions to date, and new versions continue to proliferate. Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins’ 1939 version of "Body and Soul" established it as the leading jazz ballad for instrumentalists, and it remains the acid test for tenors. Hawkins’ recording often is credited with establishing the tenor saxophone as the major jazz instrument. Before that the trumpet dominated jazz, thanks in large part to Louis Armstrong. "Body and Soul" is the archetype of a torch song and singers ranging from pop stars to hard core jazz vocalists have used it to display their range and improvisational abilities.
What made the Hawkins’ recording a seminal event in the history of jazz? "Body and Soul" certainly had been recorded numerous times prior to Hawkins, including masterful versions by other saxophonists like Chu Berry. Will Friedwald, in his book Stardust Melodies, answers that musical question: "On this classic version (of "Body and Soul"), Hawkins and the tune are friendly for about two bars, getting along marvelously, before they unexpectedly part company. Hawk may be thinking about the tune here and there, maybe even stealing a glimpse at it, but he never looks straight at it. This was, along with Armstrong’s "West End Blues," one of the most celebrated improvisations of all time, and a key influence on the emergence of modern jazz, in that it profoundly illustrated the possibilities open for improvising on a harmonic sequence rather than a melody line, as had been the norm in jazz up until that point. Hawkins obviously was a master of harmony, one of the few horn players until then who really knew his way around the changes, and he helped lead the way from melodic to harmonic improvisation, which was to become standard practice in the modern era." His improvising based on harmonic structure prefigured the bebop approach, which was still several years in the future.
As has often been the case with other celebrated jazz standards, "Body and Soul" had a modest birth. Johnny Green, its composer, was frequently asked if, when he was writing "Body and Soul", he knew it was going to be the most recorded torch song of all time. His set response was "No, all I knew was that it had to be finished by Wednesday." Along with lyricists Edward Heyman and Robert Sour, he wrote the song at the request of Gertrude Lawrence, an English actress specializing in musical comedy, who was in need of new material that included a torch song. Heyman came up with the song’s title. In February of 1930 the song was copyrighted first in England and Lawrence sang it on British radio but never recorded it. Thanks to the wireless, it became very successful and the most popular bandleader in Britain, Jack Hylton, made the first recording. Recordings by bandleader Bert Ambrose and other British musicians soon followed.
"Body and Soul" returned to its native country in the fall of 1930. It was to be introduced to the American public in a Broadway revue, Three’s a Crowd, starring a new talent, Libby Holman. In spite of its European success, the song almost didn’t make it to Broadway here. Holman objected to the lyrics and was dissatisfied with the orchestration, requiring both to be extensively reworked. At one point she became so upset with the staging that she threatened to walk out. At the last minute, the revue's director came up with a new staging, in which Holman simply walked onto the stage in the classic torch singer’s slinky black dress and sang "Body and Soul." That was all it took to make her a star and the show and the song immediate hits. However, the song still was not universally loved by the New York critics. Robert Benchley, writing for The New Yorker, rendered his opinion that "I do not think that her big number, "Body and Soul," is a very good song (it was imported from England quite a long time ago [sic]and has had its edge worn off by several hundred saxophones)..." And this was before all the tenor titans had to play it after Hawkins threw down the gauntlet!
"Body and Soul" was first recorded in the United States by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra in the fall of 1930, but it was Louis Armstrong’s recording that same year that brought the song to the attention of jazz musicians. His version clung closely to the melody as written, and the song became a favorite of swing musicians, who improvised on the melodic line. The improvisations by bebop musicians based on harmonic structure followed the Hawkins recording. The song appeared in the pop charts an astounding twelve times during the 1930s and 1940s. Although "Body and Soul" was strongly identified with the tenor saxophone for 20 years after Hawkins, pianists like Nat King Cole, Earl Hines and Oscar Peterson used the song to display their keyboard virtuosity. In recent times more versions of "Body and Soul" have been performed on the piano than in any other format. Although there are more instrumental than vocal versions of "Body and Soul", Tony Bennett, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn and Cassandra Wilson made memorable recordings.
Johnny Green wrote the music for "Body and Soul" at age 22, and at a young age he assured himself a place in jazz history. As Gary Giddins says in his book Rhythm-a-ning, "It is hard to imagine jazz without "Body and Soul."