East Of The Sun

"East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)" was written by Brooks Bowman in 1934 for the Princeton Triangle Club's annual musical Stags at Bay, a Depression-era social satire directed by Joshua Logan. Bowman, a member of the class of 1936, was an amateur songwriter who produced only a handful of compositions tied to this single production. The song nearly was cut from the show but survived to become one of its standout numbers alongside Bowman's own "Love and a Dime." The title draws from a Norwegian fairy tale, and the dreamy, moonlit quality of the melody reflects that storybook origin. Stags at Bay toured successfully and sold out performances in New York, catching the attention of professional musicians. Bowman was planning a publishing deal in New York when he was killed in a car accident in 1937 at the age of twenty-three, leaving this as his most prominent legacy. F. Scott Fitzgerald, a fellow Princeton alumnus, praised the composition. Tom Coakley and His Orchestra, with vocalist Carl Ravazza, scored a number one hit with the song in 1935. Tommy Dorsey's 1940 recording featuring a young Frank Sinatra on vocals and Bunny Berigan on trumpet proved pivotal in cementing the tune as a jazz standard. It has since attracted hundreds of recordings spanning dance band, big band swing, bebop, and cool jazz, with notable versions by Zoot Sims, Bud Powell, Bud Shank with Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars, and Carmen McRae.