Victor Young, music · Edward Heyman, lyrics · From the 1945 film Love Letters
Love Letters
Victor Young wrote this ballad for the 1945 film Love Letters, and Edward Heyman added words. The tune has four short parts, and the second wanders away from home before the first returns. The path runs from Dick Haymes's 1945 record to Diana Krall's 2001 album with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Listen in this order
The path starts with the song as Dick Haymes sang it in 1945 and Nat King Cole's slower reading in 1956. It then turns to instrumental bands: a cornet quartet, an organ quintet, a piano trio, a guitar quartet and a marimba and piano duo, and ends with Diana Krall singing with an orchestra.
1990sBobby Hutcherson and Tommy Flanagan1991 · Post-bop
2000sDiana Krall2001 · Contemporary jazz
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Hear the 1945 vocal version
Dick Haymes with Victor Young and His Orchestra · 1945 · Vocal
Love Letters
Dick Haymes recorded the song on March 2, 1945, with Victor Young arranging and conducting. The record peaked in September 1945, a month before the film opened, and the song was nominated for the Academy Award for best original song.
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Listen for
Haymes sings the words with Victor Young's orchestra behind him, and nothing else competes with the tune. Use this as your reference for how the song goes before any jazz player changes it.
Try it on your instrument
Play the ( 1–8) slowly: for two bars, for two, , then and sharing a bar, then Gmaj7 for two. If you only play the melody, play it over a held Gmaj7 and listen for where it wants to move.
Nat King Cole recorded it in December 1956 with Gordon Jenkins's orchestra for the album Love Is the Thing. On the original release, only the mono pressing carries this song.
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Cole sings the whole song with Gordon Jenkins conducting the orchestra. Compare his relaxed phrasing with Haymes's record from 1945.
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Play the ( 9–16): , , , , , E7, Am7, . The music steps away from here, so play it slowly and listen for the moment it heads back home.
Nat Adderley's cornet quartet recorded it on June 20, 1961, for the Jazzland album Naturally!. Joe Zawinul played piano, with Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums.
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The cornet carries the tune, with piano, bass and drums behind it. Notice how well the tune holds up when nobody gives it words.
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Play the ( 25–32): , , , , , , . These bring the tune home, so play them slowly in a steady rhythm and end on G6.
Stanley Turrentine's quintet recorded it on January 24, 1964, at Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey. Blue Note issued it on Hustlin' in 1965, with Shirley Scott on organ and Kenny Burrell on guitar.
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Turrentine plays tenor sax, and Shirley Scott's organ and Kenny Burrell's guitar share the band. At more than seven minutes it runs much longer than the first two records, so the band has room to go past the tune.
Try it on your instrument
Loop the (, Gmaj7, , Em7, , , Gmaj7, Gmaj7) and play only the root of each on beat one. A bigger step: add one more note from each chord to shape a short line.
Kenny Drew's trio recorded it in Copenhagen on May 21, 1974, for the SteepleChase album Dark Beauty. Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen played bass and Albert Heath played drums.
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Listen for
Piano, bass and drums are the only voices, so you can pick out each part. Follow the bass line under the piano for a .
Try it on your instrument
Play all four sections in order, A, B, A, C, with the in the form text. If you can only play the melody, play it once through slowly and count the 32 .
Bobby Hutcherson and Tommy Flanagan · 1991 · Post-bop
Mirage
Bobby Hutcherson, on marimba, and pianist Tommy Flanagan play it as a duo on Mirage, an album recorded in New York in February 1991 for Landmark.
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Listen for
Only two instruments play, Hutcherson's marimba and Flanagan's piano. The sound is open enough that you can hear every note of the tune and how the two players share it.
Try it on your instrument
Try it with a partner: one person plays the melody and the other plays the from the form text, then swap. Alone, play the chords with your left hand and the melody with your right.
Diana Krall sings and plays piano on this track from her 2001 album The Look of Love. Claus Ogerman arranged and conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, which was recorded at Abbey Road in March 2001.
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Listen for
Krall's voice and piano sit in front of a and the London Symphony Orchestra, the biggest sound on the path. Compare how the orchestra fills the space with Haymes's orchestra from 1945.
Try it on your instrument
Sing or play the melody slowly over the form (A, B, A, C). The record runs almost five minutes, so count how many times the 32 go round.
Victor Young's theme from the film Love Letters gets words from Edward Heyman. Dick Haymes records the song in March 1945, and it is nominated for an Academy Award.
1950s
Nat King Cole sings it in December 1956 with Gordon Jenkins conducting the orchestra, for the album Love Is the Thing.
1960s
Ketty Lester's record reaches No. 5 on the US chart and No. 4 in the UK. Nat Adderley's quartet and Stanley Turrentine's organ band play it without words in 1961 and 1964.
1970s
Pianist Kenny Drew records it with a trio in Copenhagen in 1974. A year later, Jim Hall's trio plays it for more than nine minutes in a Toronto club.
1980s
Guitarist Tal Farlow plays it with a piano, bass and drums quartet in New York in August 1982.
1990s
Bobby Hutcherson, on marimba, and pianist Tommy Flanagan play it as a duo on the album Mirage, recorded in New York in February 1991.
2000s
Diana Krall sings it in 2001 on The Look of Love, with Claus Ogerman arranging for the London Symphony Orchestra. Scott Hamilton's tenor sax quartet plays it on a 2005 album.
More great versions
2 more, from 1961 to 1962. Tap a cover to play it here.
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
G majorusual key
32 barsA · B · A · C form
G major → B minor → A minor → G majorkey centers
A8 bars
B8 bars
A8 bars
C8 bars
G
B m
A m
G
Four sections run A, B, A, C. A sits at home in : for two bars, for two, , then and sharing bar 6, and Gmaj7 for the last two. B leaves home: and lead to in bars 9 to 11, leads to Am7, and E7, Am7 and D7 steer back toward G. The second A repeats the first, with Am7 and D7 in bar 22 and in bar 24 pointing toward C. C opens on and , settles on Gmaj7, passes through to Am7, D7 and in bar 30, and closes on for two bars. The follow the iReal Pro chart; players often vary them.