The song of the day for Friday, June 30, 2017 is “Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye.”
About This Song
Today’s song, “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye,” was written in 1922 by Gus Kahn, Ernie Erdman, Ted Fiorito and Dan Russo. This song is best known by it appearance in The Jazz Singer, the first “talking picture” that revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking overnight. “Toot, Toot Tootsie” was sung by Al Jolson, playing the role of a young jazz singer known as Jack Robin née Jakie Rabinowitz.
About This Version
Tony Bennett recorded “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye” in 1961 for his album My Heart Sings. Ralph Burns did the arrangement. Bennett sang it the following year at his concert at Carnegie Hall.
“Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye,” as well as My Heart Sings, is available from iTunes.
About Today
Today is the last day of June and the last day of our tribute to arranger Ralph Burns. I had always associated Burns with Hometown, My Town, and only learned this month of the full scope of his work for Bennett, including Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot & Cool, released just a short time before Burns’ death. I admire and appreciate the fine work he did for Bennett over the years.
We’ll be honoring a new musical collaborator starting tomorrow. I think you’ll all be surprised with the pick!
Love it!
So did I!
Nobody I’ve heard in a long, long lifetime of listening intently to popular music is as kind and thoughtful to a song, nobody nurses it through your ears to your mind and sense of rythm, and then brings it to its maturity in a way that delights or teases your ear, mind and heart..
He sees it gently through its birth and first escapades,
and then adventures creatively, alongside it through its best full-throated phases, boldly or brazenly or gently, as appropriate,
and then leaps defiantly or slides gently with it into a culmination that sends it offstage, with the touch appropriate, to its culminating moment. Vale Tony Bennett, 21 July 2025