Vernon Duke, music · E. Y. Harburg, lyrics · From the Broadway musical Walk a Little Faster, 1932
April in Paris
Duke and E. Y. Harburg wrote April in Paris for the 1932 Broadway musical Walk a Little Faster. Its wander through several before coming home, which gives players plenty to work with. Count Basie's 1955 record is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, and Parker, Vaughan and Monk also recorded it.
Listen in this order
The path begins with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing it in 1956, then goes back to 1949 for Charlie Parker with strings. Two piano trios, Sarah Vaughan with a trumpet, Count Basie's band and Erroll Garner's live trio follow, and Thelonious Monk plays it alone at the end.
Recorded in Hollywood in August 1956 with the Oscar Peterson Quartet behind the two singers. Producer Norman Granz chose eleven mostly slow or medium-paced songs for the album, and Armstrong had the final say over songs and .
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
The two singers and Armstrong's trumpet are the lead voices, with Oscar Peterson's piano and Herb Ellis's guitar behind them. At 6:33 it is the longest track on the path.
Try it on your instrument
Play 1 to 8 (the A part), one to a bar: ♭9sus, , , , Cmaj7, Cmaj7, , . If that is too many shapes, play only Cmaj7 and G7 and sing or play the melody over them.
Charlie Parker with Jimmy Carroll's orchestra · 1949 · Bebop
Charlie Parker with Strings
Parker recorded it in New York on November 30, 1949, with a string section, harp and oboe arranged and conducted by Jimmy Carroll. Mercury issued it on a single and on the album Charlie Parker with Strings.
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
Parker's alto saxophone leads over violins, viola, cello, harp and oboe, with piano, bass and drums underneath. The record lasts about three minutes.
Try it on your instrument
Play 9 to 16 (the B part): , Fmaj7, , , , , E7, . A bar with two gets two beats each. Smaller version: Fmaj7 for bars 9 and 10, Am for 11 and 12, for 13 to 16.
Monk recorded it at WOR Studios in New York on October 24, 1947, with Eugene Ramey on bass and Art Blakey on drums. Blue Note put it out in 1951 as a single, paired with Nice Work If You Can Get It.
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
The piano leads, with Eugene Ramey's bass and Art Blakey's drums behind it. At 3:20 the whole take is short, so you can follow the tune from start to finish.
Try it on your instrument
Play 17 to 20: , C/E , , . Smaller version: C for bars 17 and 18, for bar 19 and C6 for bar 20.
Powell recorded it in New York in February 1950 with Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums. Mercury issued it on a single with So Sorry Please, and Norgran later collected it on the album Jazz Giant.
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
The piano leads, with Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums. Play it right after Monk's trio and compare how each pianist sets the mood.
Try it on your instrument
Play 21 to 24: , , , . The last bar has three , so give each one beat and rest on the fourth. Smaller version: Am for bars 21 and 22, then G7 for bar 24.
Vaughan recorded it with Clifford Brown at Fine Sound in New York on December 18, 1954. It is on the EmArcy album Sarah Vaughan, the only record the two made together.
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
Vaughan's voice and Clifford Brown's trumpet are the two names on the record. At just over six minutes it is one of the longest tracks on the path.
Try it on your instrument
Play 25 to 32 (the D part): ♭9sus, , , , , G7, , C6. Smaller version: play only G7♭9sus, Cmaj7 and C6, and skip the middle four bars.
Count Basie and His Orchestra · 1955 · Swing, Bebop
April in Paris
Basie's band recorded it at Fine Sound in New York on July 26, 1955, in an arrangement by Wild Bill Davis, for the album April in Paris, his first for Verve. The record includes a Thad Jones trumpet solo and a trombone by Benny Powell, and Basie calls for the last "one more time".
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
The whole band plays, with Thad Jones on trumpet and Benny Powell on trombone given moments out front. Near the end Basie calls for the closing "one more time", and then once more.
Try it on your instrument
Play all 32 once, one to a bar (take the first chord where a bar has two), then twice more, the way the band repeats its ending. Smaller version: play the A part three times.
Garner's trio played it at the Sunset School in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, on September 19, 1955. The concert was not planned as a record: an Armed Forces Radio engineer was taping it, and Garner's manager took the tape to Columbia.
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
Garner's piano is out front, and the bass and drums sit well behind it in the recorded balance. It is a live room recording, so it sounds different from the studio tracks before it.
Try it on your instrument
Play the A part with the root of each in your left hand (G, C, D, G, C, C, G, C, one per ) and the melody in your right. Smaller version: left hand only.
Monk recorded it alone at Reeves Sound Studios in New York on April 16, 1957, ten years after his trio version. It is on his Riverside album Thelonious Himself.
Couldn't play this one here. Try the links below.
Listen for
Only Monk's piano is on the record, so every choice he makes with the tune is out in the open. At 3:54 it runs about half a minute longer than his 1947 trio take.
Try it on your instrument
Play the whole alone, one to a , with no band to keep time. This needs the full 32-bar chart. Smaller version: play the A part and then the D part, which open the same way.
Vernon Duke and E. Y. Harburg write the song in 1932 for the Broadway musical Walk a Little Faster. According to Wikipedia, Freddy Martin and Henry King had the earliest hits with it, at the end of 1933.
1940s
Thelonious Monk records it with his trio in New York in October 1947. In November 1949 Charlie Parker plays it with strings, harp and oboe in an arrangement by Jimmy Carroll.
1950s
Sarah Vaughan sings it with Clifford Brown's trumpet in December 1954, and Count Basie's band records it in July 1955. In April 1957 Thelonious Monk plays it alone at the piano.
1960s
Bill Evans records it as a solo piano piece in New York in January 1963. Milestone later issues it on The Solo Sessions, Vol. 1.
2000s
Anthony Braxton's quartet plays it on a European tour in 2003, and Leo Records issues the shows in 2005 as a four-CD set.
More great versions
3 more, from 1952 to 1957. Tap a cover to play it here.
The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, led by the arrangers Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan, began recording in 1952. According to Wikipedia, its version of this song that year, a remake inspired by the film, made the Cashbox Top 50.
Holiday recorded it in Los Angeles on August 18, 1956, with a band that included Harry Edison and Ben Webster. Apple lists it on the 1959 Verve album All or Nothing at All.
Sinatra recorded it with Billy May's orchestra at Capitol Studio A in Hollywood in October 1957. It is on Come Fly with Me, an album built as a musical trip around the world.
The tune's layout, its keys and the chord chart, for anyone who wants to play along.
Show the form and chords
How the tune works
C majorusual key
32 barsA · B · C · D form
C · F · A m · E m · D mkeys it moves between
A8 bars
B8 bars
C8 bars
D8 bars
C
F
A m
E m
C
A m
E m
C
D m
C
The chart in iReal Pro has four parts of 8 , 32 in all, in . A opens on ♭9sus, settles on in bar 2, then runs , , Cmaj7, Cmaj7 and ends on and , which point toward F. B starts with two bars of , then and in bars 11 and 12, and bars 13 to 16 run , , E7 and . C begins with F♯m7♭5 , C/E and Dm7♭5 G7♭9, and lands on in bar 20. Bars 21 to 24 return to the turn (Bm7♭5 E7, Am Am/G), then F♯m7♭5 B7♭9 and G7. D opens like A, then runs Em7♭5, A7♭9, , Dm7♭5 G7 and rests on C6 for the last two bars.