The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

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Song of the Day: Begin the Beguine

The song of the day for Monday, December 9, 2024, is “Begin the Beguine.”

About Today

Today’s song is from Tony Bennett’s 2nd jazz album and third album: The Beat of My Heart. The album was released on December 9, 1957.

About This Song

“Begin the Beguine” was written by Cole Porter for the 1925 musical Jubilee. The song has an unusual structure, having a 108-measure length, as opposed to the standard 32-bar structure of most popular music. One of the earliest popular recordings was Artie Shaw’s instrumental in 1938. The Middle Eastern style of the song is well-served by Shaw’s clarinet solo. The song has an unusual structure, having a 108-measure length, as opposed to the standard 32-bar structure of most popular music. One of the earliest popular recordings was Artie Shaw’s instrumental in 1938. The Middle Eastern style of the song is well-served by Shaw’s clarinet solo.

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded “Begin the Beguine” on October 21, 1957, for his album The Beat of My Heart. Ralph Sharon wrote the arrangement. For this album, Bennett invited guest percussionists to play. Drummer Jo Jones was the guest drummer for “Begin the Beguine.”

The recording was not released on the original 1957 LP, but was added to the 1997 CD re-release.

“Begin the Beguine,” as well as The Beat of My Heart, is available on Apple Music.

And because I once played the clarinet and loved Artie Shaw, here’s his brilliant 1938 recording:

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Song of the Day: Begin The Beguine

The song of the day for Saturday, May 31, 2014 is “Begin The Beguine.”

About This Song

One of Cole Porter’s most popular songs, “Begin the Beguine” is from the 1935 musical Jubilee. The song has an unusual structure, having a 108 measure length, as opposed to the standard 32-bar structure of most popular music. One of the earliest popular recordings was Artie Shaw’s instrumental in 1938. The middle eastern style of the song is well-served by Shaw’s clarinet solo.

About This Version

Today’s version of “Begin the Beguine” is Tony Bennett’s first recording of the song, from The Beat of My Heart, released in 1957. The album, Bennett’s third 12″ LP, featured percussionists from the world over to the studio. This song features the drummer Jo Jones, Ralph Sharon on piano, Eddie Costa on vibes, Eddie Safranski on bass and Robert Alexander, Ziskind Lieb, Kai Winding and James Dahl on trombone.

Even though the album was produced by Mitch Miller, it was devised and conceived entirely by Bennett and Ralph Sharon.

http://open.spotify.com/track/5isGgjYCh3pjzbdicSeLBU
“Begin The Beguine,” as well as the album The Beat of My Heart, is available from iTunes.

For today’s video, we’re doing a bit of a departure in showing a video of Artie Shaw and His Orchestra playing “Begin The Beguine.” Maybe it’s because I used play the clarinet, but I’ve always had real soft spot for Artie Shaw’s version of this Cole Porter song. This recording is from 1938.

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Song of the Day: Begin the Beguine

The Song of the Day for Thursday, November 1, 2012 is Begin the Beguine.

About Begin the Beguine

When I was about seven years old, I asked my mother (who was preparing dinner at the time) what the word ‘beguine’ meant. Either she didn’t know or didn’t have time to tell me; she told me finish setting the table.  Now, some decades later, I decided to look it up and found this excellent description on Wikipedia:

A Beguine was originally a Christian lay woman of the 13th or 14th century living in a religious community without formal vows; but in the Creole of the Caribbean, especially in Martinique and Guadeloupe, the term came to mean “white woman”, and then to be applied to a style of music and dance, and in particular a slow, close couples’ dance. This, a combination of French ballroom dance and Latin folk dance, became popular in Paris and spread further abroad in the 1940s, largely due to the influence of the Porter song.

Begin the Beguine was written, of course, by Cole Porter in 1935 for the Broadway musical Jubilee and was introduced by June Knight.

As a former clarinetist, I’m quite partial to the Artie Shaw instrumental version from 1938. It’s one of Cole Porter’s more popular songs and has been widely recorded over the years.

Another great find about this song from Wikipedia:

Leslie Hutchinson recorded a version in the 1930s. In the 1930s, this recording was given to the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, who later asked that it be played seven times at his tomb when his body was laid to rest, which occurred a week after his death on 31 January 1969.

About This Version

Tony Bennett first recorded Begin the Beguine in 1957 for The Beat of My Heart and featured Jo Jones on drums.

His next recording, which is featured today, was made in 1960 for Mr. Broadway: Tony’s Greatest Broadway Hits; arranged and conducted by Ralph Sharon and produced by Mitch Miller. The same version was included on the 1973 Sunrise, Sunset and on the Forty (and Fifty) Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett sets. It also featured on a very fine album, The Very Best of Cole Porter.