Night And Day

Original sheet front page (1932)

Night And Day is a popular song by Cole Porter. It was written for the 1932 musical play Gay Divorce. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook and has been recorded by dozens of artists.

Original theatre poster (1932)

Fred Astaire introduced Night And Day on stage, and his recording of the song with the Leo Reisman orchestra was a no.1 hit, topping the charts of the day for ten weeks.

Original film poster (1934)

Fred Astaire performed Night And Day again in the 1934 film version of the show, renamed The Gay Divorcee, and it became one of his signature pieces.

Original film poster (1946)

Night And Day was so associated with Cole Porter, that when Hollywood first filmed his life story in 1946, the movie was entitled Night and Day.

The construction of Night and Day is unusual for a hit song of the 1930s. Most popular tunes then featured 32-bar choruses, divided into four 8-bar sections, usually with an AABA musical structure, the B section representing the bridge. Porter's song, on the other hand, has a chorus of 48 bars, divided into six sections of eight bars—ABABCB—with section C representing the bridge. (info above excerpted from Wikipedia, here )

Night And Day has been recorded by numerous artists, both as an instrumental and with Porter's lyrics by various vocalists. Below I'll insert some examples within a jazz context. - Here's first a recording by Ray Ventura and his Orchestra of Night And Day with vocal by an unidentified singer

In 1938, the singer Maxine Sullivan recorded her version of Night And Day

From the album Charlie Parker plays Cole Porter, here's his version of Night And  Day recorded with big band March 25, 1952 in New York

Another great instrumental of Night And Day was recorded by Art Tatum (p), Roy Eldridge (tp), John Simmons (b), Alvin Stoller (d) in 1955

One of my all time favorite instrumental recordings of Night And Day was recorded by Oscar Alemán y su Orquesta de Jazz for Odeon (Odeon 74265, mx 20199) as Noche Y Día on May 30, 1955 inserted below to end this small entry on a famous song

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Jo

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