Sophisticated Lady is a 1932 composition by Duke Ellington, with lyrics later added by Mitchell Parish and publishing credit shared with Irving Mills. Ellington said the piece was inspired by three of his grade-school teachers from Washington D.C.'s U Street neighborhood, women he regarded as sophisticated because they taught during the winter and traveled through Europe each summer. The melody is elegant and introspective, conveying worldliness and subtle melancholy through chromatic lines that George Gershwin reportedly admired enough to wish he had written. Though Ellington received primary composer credit, trombonist Lawrence Brown claimed authorship of the first eight bars, and alto saxophonist Toby Hardwick asserted he contributed the bridge, reflecting the collaborative nature of the Ellington orchestra's creative process. The original 1933 recording by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra featured solos by Hardwick, clarinetist Barney Bigard, Brown, and Ellington himself, and it reached number three on the charts. The tune became one of Ellington's most popular and commercially successful works, sitting alongside Mood Indigo and It Don't Mean a Thing as cornerstones of his early 1930s golden era. Rival bandleaders including Don Redman and Jimmie Lunceford recorded their own versions almost immediately. The composition also left a mark on film music history: David Raksin wrote Laura as a replacement theme after director Otto Preminger originally wanted to use Sophisticated Lady. A 1981 Broadway revue titled Sophisticated Ladies celebrated Ellington's catalog, with his son Mercer serving as musical director.
