"HOW HIGH THE MOON" (1940)

"How High the Moon" holds a special place in popular music recording history. In 1951 jazz guitarist Les Paul and vocalist Mary Ford recorded the song on the Capitol Records label using a new technique, multitrack recording. The record sold a million copies and stayed at the top of the pop charts for nine weeks. Paul, an inventor and electronic genius as well as an accomplished musician, developed multitrack recording, overdubbing and the electronic reverb effect that have become mainstays of today’s recording industry. Critic and essayist Clive James at www.clivejames.com describes the impact of Paul and Ford’s landmark recording of "How High the Moon": "Some of the techniques used in the arrangement and production had never been heard before and would never be topped again for their integrated effect, even when there were whole studios available to extend the multitrack concept that Les Paul did so much to invent... The future had not yet arrived, but it started here. All these historical considerations will be left aside, however, when the new listener first lays ears on what is made to happen in just over two minutes. It’s a sonic universe, the ideal blend of melody and impetus." In 1953 on his CBS television program Omnibus, Alistair Cooke interviewed Paul and Ford about their multitrack recording process. In the following video clip the duo performs "How High the Moon" and describes how they built up the sound layer by layer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YA_RINQySU
"How High the Moon" was an established standard by the time that Paul and Ford recorded it. Alfred Drake and Frances Compton had introduced it eleven years earlier in the Broadway musical revue, Two for the Show, the second revue in a popular series that included One for the Money and Three to Get Ready. The songwriting team of composer Morgan Lewis and lyricist Nancy Hamilton wrote the songs for the revues. Philip Furia and William Lasser in their book America’s Songs describe Lewis and Hamilton as specializing in "...witty patter songs for sophisticated Broadway revues. When their songs were criticized for lacking "social significance," Hamilton quipped, "I seen my ditty and I done it." When the revue Two for the Show needed a romantic ballad, however, Lewis created an unusual and enchanting tune. Hamilton put aside her witty patter and wrote a straightforward, soaring lyric that shifts its long vowels as intricately as Lewis’ music changes chords..."
The 1951 Les Paul and Mary Ford record was the best known version of "How High the Moon," but the song already had appeared on the pop charts three times in the 1940s. Just weeks after the Broadway revue opened, Benny Goodman and His Orchestra made the first hit recording to enter the pop charts, where it peaked at sixth place. The song reached the charts a second time in 1940 with a recording by Mitchell Ayres and His Fashions in Music featuring Mary Ann Mercer on vocals (#18) and again in 1948 with an instrumental by Stan Kenton and His Orchestra (#20).
Although popular with swing musicians and balladeers, but it wasn’t until the bebop musicians laid claim to "How High the Moon" that it became one of the most recorded jazz standards. Alec Wilder in his book American Popular Song said, "...it became virtually the "bop" hymn. For years it was the most played tune in jazz, its chord progressions supplying the harmonic basis for a number of "new" bop tunes. Upon examination of the song’s harmonic sequences, one can see why. They were highly unusual, and they changed just often enough to please an improvising player…the sequence is quite logical: G major, G minor, C-dominant seventh, E-flat major, C minor, D-dominant seventh, G minor, C-minor sixth, and, at long last, G major. It’s quite a routine and meat to an improviser." Most notably, the song’s chord changes served as the basis for Charlie Parker’s "Ornithology," John Coltrane’s "Satellite," and Miles Davis’ "Solar."
Ella Fitzgerald, whose career was lagging in the early 1940s after the death of her bandleader, Chick Webb, rejuvenated herself when she embraced the fundamentals of bebop and began scat singing. Her December 1947 recording of "How High the Moon," in which she sang the first chorus and then scatted the remainder, created a sensation and caused the song forever after to be closely associated with her. Alan Kurtz at www.jazz.com writes, "Yet even after Les Paul & Mary Ford's 1951 #1 pop hit, "How High the Moon" was for jazz fans from 1948 onward most closely identified with Fitzgerald. Effortlessly adopting bebop's musical vocabulary to her Swing Era sweetness, Ella interpolates Charlie Parker's 1946 "Ornithology" (based on the same chord changes) and Ella-vates scat singing from novelty to high art." "How High the Moon" became one of her signature tunes and her 1960 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.
"How High the Moon" has undergone an interesting metamorphosis over its long life as a jazz standard. Even though originally conceived as a slow and dreamy ballad to be sung in a romantic fashion, now it is almost universally performed up-tempo and instrumental versions outnumber vocals. In 1997 "How High the Moon" received the Towering Song Award from the National Academy of Popular Music. This award honors outstanding songs by writers who don’t have an extensive catalog of hits and who have not been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. While Lewis and Hamilton may not have a string of hits to their credit, "How High the Moon," whether performed as a slow ballad or as a bop hymn, unquestionably is a towering song.