Eubie Blake, music · Andy Razaf, lyrics · Introduced by Minto Cato in Blackbirds of 1930
Memories of You
Eubie Blake and Andy Razaf wrote this nostalgic song for the Broadway revue Blackbirds of 1930. Players from Louis Armstrong to Thelonious Monk and Shirley Horn have recorded it. Frank Sinatra closed his last Capitol album with it, and Johnny Carson's final Tonight Show used it in 1992.
Listen in this order
The path starts with Louis Armstrong's record from the year the song was written. It then visits a swing sextet, a trumpet with strings, Thelonious Monk alone at the piano, a Charles Mingus band, a Roland Kirk quartet and Shirley Horn singing with her trio, and ends with Kenny Barron at the piano in 2007.
1930sLouis Armstrong & His Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra1930
Benny Goodman Sextet1939
1940s
1950sClifford Brown with Strings1955 · Bebop
Thelonious Monk1956 · Bebop
Charles Mingus Sextet1957 · Cool jazz
1960sJaki Byard Quartet1968 · Post-bop
1970s
1980sShirley Horn1988
1990s
2000sKenny Barron2007 · Contemporary jazz
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Louis Armstrong & His Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra · 1930
OKeh 78 rpm single
Louis Armstrong recorded the song in Los Angeles on 16 October 1930, six days before the revue Blackbirds of 1930 opened in New York. Lionel Hampton plays vibraphone in the band, and according to Wikipedia this is the first known use of the vibraphone in popular music.
Vibraphone
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Listen for
Armstrong plays trumpet and sings the song himself. Listen for the ringing sound of Lionel Hampton's vibraphone in the band.
Try it on your instrument
Play 1 to 4 of an slowly: , , , . If the diminished are new, use Cmaj7, Dm7, Am7 and for one bar each, and hum the tune over them.
Benny Goodman Sextet (with Charlie Christian) · 1939
Columbia 78 rpm single
The Benny Goodman Sextet recorded the song in New York on 22 November 1939, with Lionel Hampton on vibraphone and Charlie Christian on electric guitar. According to JazzStandards.com, the record made the tune a feature for clarinetists.
Vibraphone
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Goodman's clarinet leads, and Lionel Hampton's vibraphone and Charlie Christian's electric guitar both take solos.
Try it on your instrument
Play 5 to 8 of an at a steady swing pace: , , , G7, two beats per . Then play the tune over them.
Clifford Brown recorded the song in New York on 19 January 1955 with a string section conducted by Neal Hefti, for the EmArcy album Clifford Brown with Strings. His that day was Richie Powell on piano, Barry Galbraith on guitar, George Morrow on bass and Max Roach on drums.
With strings
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Brown's trumpet carries the song while a small string section plays behind him.
Try it on your instrument
Play all 32 at a slow ballad pace, holding each for its full length the way a string section would. Then play the tune over the top.
Monk recorded this track alone at the piano on 17 March 1956, at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, for The Unique Thelonious Monk. Oscar Pettiford and Art Blakey join him on most of the album's other tracks.
Solo piano
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Monk plays by himself, and the whole track lasts about four minutes.
Try it on your instrument
Play the tune with your right hand and one left-hand note per , leaving a full beat of silence at the end of each phrase.
Charles Mingus recorded the song with his sextet in New York on 16 August 1957, and it is the first track on his Bethlehem album East Coasting. Bill Evans plays piano in the band.
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Mingus leads on bass, with trumpet, trombone, saxophone and Bill Evans's piano around him.
Try it on your instrument
Play the , one each with two chords in bars 4 and 6: , , Am7, , Am7, D7, , . Hum the tune over them.
Jaki Byard Quartet (with Roland Kirk) · 1968 · Post-bop
The Jaki Byard Experience
Jaki Byard led this quartet session for Prestige in New York on 17 September 1968, with Roland Kirk on reeds, Richard Davis on bass and Alan Dawson on drums. The record came out in 1969 as The Jaki Byard Experience.
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This take runs just over seven minutes, and Jaki Byard's piano and Roland Kirk's reed playing share the lead.
Try it on your instrument
Soloing over this tune's takes more than the tune and basic chords. A smaller version: loop the chords, and on each chord play just two notes from it in a rhythm of your own.
Shirley Horn recorded the song at A&R Recording in New York in November 1988 for Close Enough for Love, her second album for Verve. She sings and plays piano with her trio, and Buck Hill adds tenor saxophone.
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Horn sings and plays her own piano, and the track stretches the song to more than seven minutes with a tenor saxophone joining in.
Try it on your instrument
Hum or sing the tune slowly while you play one per through an , then rest for a full bar before you start again.
Eubie Blake and Andy Razaf write the song for the revue Blackbirds of 1930, where Minto Cato introduces it. Louis Armstrong records it in Los Angeles on 16 October 1930, and Benny Goodman's sextet follows in 1939.
1950s
Clifford Brown plays it with strings in January 1955. Thelonious Monk plays it alone on The Unique Thelonious Monk in 1956, and Charles Mingus records it in August 1957 with Bill Evans on piano.
1960s
Frank Sinatra records it in September 1961 as the last song on Point of No Return. In 1968 Jaki Byard and Roland Kirk stretch it past seven minutes for Prestige.
1970s
Zoot Sims and the guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli record it as a tenor saxophone and guitar duo in New York on 22 April 1974 for Groove Merchant.
1980s
Shirley Horn sings it and plays piano in November 1988 for Close Enough for Love, her second Verve album, with Buck Hill on tenor saxophone.
1990s
Hank Jones plays it alone at the piano in a live recital at Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley on 11 November 1991.
2000s
Kenny Barron records a solo piano version in New York in December 2007, and Sunnyside releases it as the closing track of The Traveler.
More great versions
6 more, from 1950 to 1991. Tap a cover to play it here.
1950sZoot Sims Quartet1950
Sonny Criss Quartet1956
Art Tatum - Buddy DeFranco Quartet1956
1960sFrank Sinatra1961 · Big band
1970sZoot Sims & Bucky Pizzarelli1974 · Cool jazz
1980s
1990sHank Jones1991
Zoot Sims Quartet
1950
Prestige 78 rpm single
Zoot Sims recorded the song in New York on 16 September 1950 with a quartet that included pianist John Lewis. Prestige issued it on a 78 in 1951 and later on the LP Zoot Sims Quartets.
Art Tatum recorded the song with clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, bassist Red Callender and drummer Bill Douglass on 6 February 1956. Pablo later issued it in the series The Tatum Group Masterpieces, produced by Norman Granz.
Frank Sinatra recorded the song on 11 or 12 September 1961 at Capitol Studio A in Hollywood, with Axel Stordahl arranging and conducting. According to Wikipedia, it is the last song on Point of No Return, the last album he recorded for Capitol.
Zoot Sims and guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli recorded the song in New York on 22 April 1974 for Groove Merchant. jazzdisco.org lists Milt Hinton and Buddy Rich on tracks 6 to 11 only, and this is track 2, so it is a tenor saxophone and guitar duo.
Hank Jones played the song alone at the piano in a live recital at Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, California, on 11 November 1991. Concord Jazz issued the recital in 1992 as volume 16 of its Maybeck series.
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 · A · B · A form
C → A m → Ckey centers
A8 bars
A8 bars
B8 bars · bridge
A8 bars
C
A m
C
The runs 32 in four sections of eight: A, A, B, A, in . Each A opens with and , then and , then and . Bar 4 brings and , bar 5 returns to Cmaj7 and , and bars 6 and 7 run , , and . The first A ends on , Dm7 and G7 and repeats; the second A ends on C6, and , which leads into the . B sits in : Am7, , Am7, D7 and , Am7, and D7, then Dm7 and G7 turn back toward C. The last A repeats the opening and ends on C6, Dm7 and G7. According to JazzStandards.com, the published version is in E♭ with a in ; the chart on this page is in C.