Body And Soul

Johnny Green composed Body And Soul in 1929 at the age of twenty, with lyrics by Edward Heyman and Robert Sour. The song was commissioned by actress Gertrude Lawrence, for whom Green was working as a piano accompanist, a relationship dating back to 1922 when the teenage Green led a dance band at Harvard. Lawrence paid Green one hundred pounds for the composition and initially held the copyright, though she later returned both the money and the rights after the song became a hit. The tune is a torch ballad with an AABA structure whose harmonic sophistication, particularly in the bridge section, set it apart from typical popular songs of its era. Green drew inspiration for the bridge's chord movement from the opening progressions of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, lending the composition a depth that made it an ideal vehicle for jazz improvisation. Body And Soul traveled to London before achieving American success, where bandleader Bert Ambrose premiered it at the May Fair Hotel after his assistant selected it from a stack of manuscripts Gertrude Lawrence had delivered. Jack Hylton made the first recording, followed by Paul Whiteman's orchestra, whose version reached number one on the American charts despite being banned from radio for nearly a year due to its suggestive lyrics. Coleman Hawkins's landmark 1939 recording, in which he largely abandoned the original melody across two choruses of saxophone improvisation, is widely regarded as a harbinger of modern jazz. The composition has since been recorded hundreds of times and stands as one of the most frequently performed standards in American music, earning Green induction into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1972.