"Rosetta" is a jazz standard composed by Earl Hines and Henri Woode in 1932, submitted for copyright in February 1933. Hines and Woode wrote the tune after Hines met the pianist-arranger in Kansas City and hired him for his band. The composition features a memorable, instrumentally conceived melody with the edgy harmonic style characteristic of Hines, including a notable key change in the bridge. It became a showpiece for Hines's orchestra and was first recorded by Earl Hines and His Orchestra on February 13, 1933, for the Brunswick label in an arrangement by Cecil Irwin, with trumpeter Walter Fuller contributing Armstrong-style vocals on two of the four takes. Fuller was so taken with the tune's success that he named his daughter after it. Hines re-recorded the piece in 1934 in a faster arrangement by Quinn Wilson, and revisited it in a remarkable series of solo piano performances on October 6, 1939, for Bluebird, where his celebrated "trumpet-style" right-hand octaves used the chord progression as a springboard for spontaneous invention. Henry "Red" Allen also recorded the tune in 1937 and performed it on the landmark 1957 CBS television broadcast The Sound of Jazz alongside Coleman Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell, and Rex Stewart. "Rosetta" stands as a key example of Hines's innovative harmonic thinking and his influential approach to ensemble and solo piano that helped shape modern jazz piano technique.
