Nice Work If You Can Get It was composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin in 1937 for the Fred Astaire film A Damsel in Distress. The melody had its origins in a nine-bar phrase Gershwin sketched in 1930 under the title There's No Stopping Me Now. Astaire introduced the song in the film, and his recording with Ray Noble's orchestra reached number one on the charts in 1938. Tragically, the film represented the final collaboration between the Gershwin brothers, as George died from a brain tumor on July 11, 1937, at the age of thirty-eight, never seeing the completed picture. The composition is distinguished by its playful syncopation, sophisticated harmonic language, and a cleverly delayed resolution to the tonic that creates forward momentum throughout the melody. The bridge contains a brief quotation of I Got Rhythm, another Gershwin classic. Billie Holiday's 1956 recording on the album Velvet Mood is widely regarded as the definitive jazz interpretation, shifting the tune toward a moody, vocal-forward treatment in medium swing. The song has endured as a widely performed jazz standard for nearly a century, valued by improvisers for its harmonic originality and by vocalists for its witty lyric, which plays on the double meaning of the word work. On AllSolos, the tune appears on Emmet Cohen's Quarantine Jams session featuring vocalist Lea DeLaria.
