Einar Aaron Swan, music and lyrics · Featured in the film Blonde Crazy, 1931
When Your Lover Has Gone
When Your Lover Has Gone is a 1931 ballad by Einar Aaron Swan, who wrote both words and music. The 1931 film Blonde Crazy featured it, and Louis Armstrong was the first jazz artist to record it. Singers and horn players keep returning to it, from Frank Sinatra in 1955 to Stacey Kent in 2000.
Listen in this order
The path starts with Louis Armstrong's 1931 record, then Frank Sinatra's ballad with strings and Billie Holiday's small group. It moves to Sonny Rollins's quartet, a quartet with no piano, a tenor ballad with the Oscar Peterson Trio and a tenor with the Red Garland Trio, and ends with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
Frank Sinatra recorded it with Nelson Riddle's orchestra in February 1955 for In the Wee Small Hours, an album of lost-love songs. According to Wikipedia, Lester Young heard this record and said he had to record the song himself.
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Sinatra sings a ballad with Nelson Riddle's orchestra, strings included, behind him. The record runs 3:10, about the length of the Armstrong version.
Try it on your instrument
Play the first eight at ballad pace, one per bar: , , , , , A7, , . Smaller version: play only the first four.
Billie Holiday recorded it in Los Angeles on August 23, 1955, with a small group that included Harry Edison on trumpet and Benny Carter on alto saxophone. It came out on the Clef album Songs by Billie Holiday, also known as Velvet Mood.
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Holiday sings with a band of trumpet, alto saxophone, piano, guitar, bass and drums. At 4:59 the record runs well past the Armstrong and Sinatra records.
Try it on your instrument
Play the second section over its : , , , , then , , Gmaj7 Em7, Am7 . Smaller version: play only the first four of it.
Sonny Rollins recorded it with Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones at the Van Gelder studio in Hackensack on May 24, 1956. John Coltrane joined that session only for the album's title track.
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A tenor saxophone leads, with piano, bass and drums behind it. At 6:13 the record runs about twice as long as the Armstrong and Sinatra records, which gives the players more time.
Try it on your instrument
Play the whole melody once through the 32 (A, B, A, C), then play only the . Playing a solo over the chords takes more experience; a smaller version is to loop the first four bars (, , , ) and play along with notes from each chord.
Ben Webster recorded the album with the Oscar Peterson Trio in Hollywood on November 6, 1959. Producer Norman Granz released it on Verve in 1960.
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Webster plays tenor saxophone with Peterson's piano, a bass and drums behind him. At 3:57 the record is close in length to the Armstrong and Sinatra records.
Try it on your instrument
Play the first four of slowly, holding each for a full bar: , , , . Smaller version: play only the bass notes G, G, G, C.
The Red Garland Trio + Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis · 1959 · Hard bop
Moodsville, Volume 1
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis joined the Red Garland Trio at the Van Gelder studio on December 11, 1959. The track came out on Moodsville, Volume 1 in 1960.
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Davis plays tenor saxophone over Garland's piano, Sam Jones's bass and Arthur Taylor's drums. At 5:56 it sits between the Mulligan and Rollins records in length.
Try it on your instrument
Play the second section's first four , holding each for a full bar: , , , . Smaller version: play only Gmaj7 and Em7, then A7.
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers · 1960 · Hard bop
A Night in Tunisia
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, with Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter, recorded it at the Van Gelder studio on August 7, 1960. According to Wikipedia, it first came out on a reissue of A Night in Tunisia in 1989.
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Trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums play together as a quintet. At 6:46 this is the longest record on the path.
Try it on your instrument
Play one per through the first eight bars: , , , , , A7, , . Smaller version: play only the bass notes G, G, G, C.
James Cagney's 1931 film Blonde Crazy features the song. Louis Armstrong records it with his orchestra in Chicago, and Gene Austin's record reaches number ten on the charts.
1950s
Frank Sinatra sings it with Nelson Riddle's orchestra on In the Wee Small Hours in 1955. Sonny Rollins plays it with a quartet in 1956, and Ben Webster plays it with the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1959.
1960s
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, with Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter, record it in 1960, and Ella Fitzgerald sings it with Nelson Riddle's orchestra in 1961.
2000s
Stacey Kent records it in June 2000 for Dreamsville, with her husband Jim Tomlinson on tenor saxophone in the band.
More great versions
7 more, from 1931 to 2000. Tap a cover to play it here.
Ella Fitzgerald opens Ella Swings Brightly with Nelson with it. The album pairs her with Nelson Riddle's arrangements and was recorded in November and December 1961.
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 · F · D · B♭ · A mkeys it moves between
A8 bars
B8 bars
A8 bars
C8 bars
G
F
D
B♭
G
A m
G
G
F
D
B♭
G
A m
G
The iReal Pro chart runs 32 in : A, B, A and C, eight bars each. Both are the same. They start on and , then and lean toward F, sits for two bars, and and lean toward B♭ before the music drops back to G. B starts on Gmaj7 and , climbs through A7 and , then plays with , with , and Gmaj7 with Em7, and ends on Am7 and . C begins like B with Gmaj7 and Em7, then Gmaj7 with F7 and lead to Am7. with leads home to G6 and Em7, and the tune closes on Am7 and D7. The labels above are a plain reading of that chart, not taken from a published analysis.