Guy Wood, music · Robert Mellin, lyrics · Recorded by Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle, 1953
My One and Only Love
My One and Only Love is a 1953 ballad by Guy Wood and Robert Mellin that Frank Sinatra recorded. Its wide-ranging melody challenges singers, and in jazz it has stayed mostly a song for tenor saxophonists. You can hear it on Coltrane and Hartman's 1963 album and in the film Leaving Las Vegas.
Listen in this order
The path starts with Frank Sinatra's 1953 record. It then follows the song through jazz: a tenor saxophone with piano, a small band, a guitar, John Coltrane with Johnny Hartman, a saxophone quartet and a piano trio, and it ends with a long live version from 1995.
1950sFrank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle's orchestra1953 · Vocal
Art Tatum and Ben Webster1956 · Swing
Horace Silver Quintet1957 · Hard bop
1960sGrant Green1962 · Bebop
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman1963 · Vocal
Sonny Rollins1964 · Bebop
Oscar Peterson Trio1964 · Bebop
1970s
1980s
1990sJoshua Redman Quartet1995
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Hear the song as it began
Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle's orchestra · 1953 · Vocal, Swing
I've Got the World on a String / My One and Only Love
Frank Sinatra recorded the song with Nelson Riddle's orchestra on May 2, 1953, at KHJ Studios in Hollywood. Capitol released it as the B side of a single from Sinatra's first session with Riddle, and according to JazzStandards.com it rose to number 28 on the charts.
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Listen for
The record opens with a short two-note call from the orchestra and no introduction, then Sinatra sings with strings behind him. An alto saxophone is part of the arrangement, and the whole record lasts a little over three minutes.
Try it on your instrument
Play the slowly, with the in order: , , Am7 , , Dm7 G7 G♯°, Am7 , Dm7 G7, then Em7 A7 Dm7 G7 in the last bar. Hum the melody over it. Smaller version: play only bars 1 to 4.
Art Tatum and Ben Webster recorded it in Los Angeles on September 11, 1956, with Red Callender on bass and Bill Douglass on drums, and Verve issued the album in 1958. The recording is heard in the 1981 film They All Laughed, according to JazzStandards.com.
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A tenor saxophone and a piano play the tune that Sinatra sang three years earlier, with bass and drums behind them. The track lasts about six minutes, nearly twice as long as Sinatra's record.
Try it on your instrument
Play the , bars 17 to 24, which moves to : , , Em7, F♯m7♭5 B7♭9, , Em7 , A7, Dm7 . Smaller version: play only the first four bars, which repeat the same two-bar pattern.
Horace Silver's quintet recorded it at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, on May 8, 1957, for the Blue Note album The Stylings of Silver. A trumpet and a tenor saxophone make up the .
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Two horns, a trumpet and a tenor saxophone, play with a piano, bass and drums, which makes a five-piece band. The record lasts seven minutes, more than twice as long as Sinatra's.
Try it on your instrument
Play the two endings of the . The first time through, 8 is and sends you back to the top. The second time, bar 16 is , which leads into the . Smaller version: play just those two bars and notice where each one goes.
Grant Green recorded it with Ike Quebec on tenor saxophone, Sonny Clark on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums at Van Gelder Studio on March 1, 1962. Blue Note kept the session in the vault until 1985, when it came out as Born to Be Blue.
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A guitar leads a quintet that also has a tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums. The track runs just under six minutes.
Try it on your instrument
On guitar, play only the root of each in 1 to 4: C, A, D, G, G♯, A, F, E, A. Then play each of those chords whole. Smaller version: do just bars 1 and 2.
Johnny Hartman sang with John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones at Van Gelder Studio on March 7, 1963. Impulse! put it on the album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman and on a single with Lush Life on the other side.
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Hartman sings the melody, and Coltrane's tenor saxophone plays it as well, so the one record has the song both sung and played. It runs about five minutes.
Try it on your instrument
Play all 32 once at a slow tempo, using the in the form text below: two , the , then the last A. Smaller version: play the first A section and stop.
Sonny Rollins recorded it for RCA Victor in New York on July 2, 1964, with Herbie Hancock on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Mickey Roker on drums. It came out on the 1965 album The Standard Sonny Rollins.
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Listen for
A tenor saxophone plays with piano, bass and drums behind it, so the saxophone alone carries the tune. The record runs about six minutes.
Try it on your instrument
Find the to pair in the . It comes in 2 (with after it), bar 5, bar 7 and the end of bar 8. Play each pair, then play the whole A section. Smaller version: play only those pairs, one after another.
The Oscar Peterson Trio, with Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums, recorded it at RCA Studios in New York on October 20, 1964. It is on We Get Requests, the album that ended Peterson's 14-year partnership with Verve.
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Only a piano, a bass and drums play, so the piano carries the tune with the behind it. The record lasts about five minutes.
Try it on your instrument
On piano, play the first with a single root note in the left hand and the in the right hand, changing on each chord symbol. Smaller version: play only 1 and 2, | , with one hand.
Spirit of the Moment: Live at the Village Vanguard
Joshua Redman's quartet played it live at the Village Vanguard in New York during a run of shows from March 21 to 26, 1995. Warner Bros. released the recordings that year as Spirit of the Moment.
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This is a club recording by a saxophone, piano, bass and drums quartet. At about eleven minutes it is more than three times as long as Sinatra's record.
Try it on your instrument
Improvising over is a bigger step than the earlier tries. Smaller version: hold the notes E, G and B (an chord) through the first of the , bar 17, and sing the bridge melody over it.
Robert Mellin writes new words for an older melody in 1952, and the song is republished in 1953 under its new title. Frank Sinatra records it with Nelson Riddle that year, and Art Tatum with Ben Webster and the Horace Silver Quintet follow in 1956 and 1957.
1960s
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman record it in 1963, and Sonny Rollins and the Oscar Peterson Trio follow in 1964.
1970s
Sonny Rollins returns to the tune in August 1977 at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, with George Duke on keyboards and Tony Williams on drums.
1990s
Pharoah Sanders records it in France in July 1990 with a quartet. Joshua Redman's quartet plays an eleven-minute live version at the Village Vanguard in March 1995.
2000s
Kurt Elling sings it live at the Allen Room at Lincoln Center in January 2009, on an album that pays tribute to the 1963 Coltrane and Hartman record.
More great versions
6 more, from 1955 to 2009. Tap a cover to play it here.
1950sCarmen McRae1955 · Vocal
1960sElla Fitzgerald with Nelson Riddle's orchestra1962 · Vocal
Wes Montgomery with the Don Sebesky Orchestra1965 · Soul jazz
Ella Fitzgerald sang it with Nelson Riddle's orchestra for the Verve album Ella Swings Gently with Nelson, recorded between November 1961 and April 1962. Riddle had also arranged Sinatra's 1953 record.
Wes Montgomery recorded it with Don Sebesky's orchestra at Van Gelder Studio on May 20, 1965, in the same run of sessions as his album Bumpin'. It first came out on the 1971 Verve album Just Walkin'.
Sonny Rollins came back to the tune in August 1977 at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, with George Duke on keyboards and Tony Williams on drums, for the album Easy Living.
Pharoah Sanders recorded it in July 1990 in Yerres, France, with William Henderson on piano, Stafford James on bass and Eccleston Wainwright on drums. It is one of the standards on the album Welcome to Love, issued on Timeless in 1991.
Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman
Kurt Elling sang it live at the Allen Room in Lincoln Center on January 21, 2009. The album Dedicated to You pays tribute to the 1963 Coltrane and Hartman record.
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 major → E minor → C majorkey centers
A8 bars
A8 bars
B8 bars · bridge
A8 bars
C
E m
C
The tune sits in . The , 1 to 8, runs , , Am7 , , Dm7 G7 G♯°, Am7 , Dm7 G7, then Em7 A7 Dm7 G7. The A section repeats in bars 9 to 16, and bar 16 changes to , which leads into the . The bridge, bars 17 to 24, sits in : Em7, F♯m7♭5 , Em7, F♯m7♭5 B7♭9, , Em7 A7, Dm7 A7, Dm7 G7. The last A, bars 25 to 32, matches the first and ends on C6 G7. These follow the iReal Pro chart. JazzStandards.com gives the original as C major with a false key change to E minor in the bridge, and other lead sheets may spell some differently.