"Four Brothers" is a jazz standard

Jazz standard

Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

 composed by Jimmy Giuffre

Jimmy Giuffre

James Peter Giuffre was an American jazz clarinet and saxophone player, composer and arranger. He is notable for his development of forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating forms of free improvisation.-Biography:Born in Dallas, Texas, of Italian ancestry,...

 and performed by the Woody Herman

Woody Herman

Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...

 Orchestra.

The song features four saxes (three tenors and one baritone) in an arrangement that gives each "brother" a solo and culminates in a hard-swinging sax section chorus.

The song so typifies the sound of Woody Herman's second "Herd" that the band is also known as the Four Brothers Band. The title also refers to the four musicians that played in the original version: Stan Getz

Stan Getz

Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

, Zoot Sims

Zoot Sims

John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...

, Herbie Steward

Herbie Steward

Herbert Steward , is an American jazz saxophonist.He is best known for being the tenor saxophone player in Four Brothers, part of Woody Herman's Second Herd.-Discography:...

, and Serge Chaloff

Serge Chaloff

Serge Chaloff was an American jazz baritone saxophonist.The son of noted Boston piano teachers, Margaret and Julius Chaloff, he was among the few major jazz performers on his instrument. Until Chaloff the only prominent baritone player in jazz was Harry Carney of the Duke Ellington Orchestra...

. All four played in a light-vibrato style that was originated by Lester Young

Lester Young

Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....

 of the Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

 Orchestra and popularized by Stan Getz.

An a cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

 rendition with full lyrics was recorded by Realtime

Realtime (quartet)

Realtime is a barbershop quartet that won the Barbershop Harmony Society's International Quartet Championship in 2005. They finished seventh-place the previous year . Lead singer John Newell is the first Australian-born international champion...

 as the title track of a 2004 CD. A vocal version was also released by The Manhattan Transfer

The Manhattan Transfer

The Manhattan Transfer is an American vocal music group. There have been two manifestations of the group, with Tim Hauser being the only person to be part of both...

 on their 1978 album Pastiche

Pastiche (Manhattan Transfer album)

Pastiche was released by The Manhattan Transfer on January 19, 1978, by Atlantic Records. This was the last studio album recorded with Laurel Massé, who ended her association with the group later that year....

. This version was based on the arrangement that Lambert, Hendricks and Ross used in the 1950s. Marian McPartland

Marian McPartland

Margaret Marian McPartland, OBE is an English-born jazz pianist, composer, writer, and the host of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on National Public Radio, NPR.-Early life:...

 also recorded a live version on piano in 1959.

Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...

 recorded scat

Scat

-Education:* School and College Ability Test* Somerset College of Arts and Technology, a community college in Somerset, England* Shrewsbury College of Arts & Technology, a community college in Shropshire, England-Games:* Thirty-one , a card game...

versions of "Four Brothers" in the 1950s and 1960s, in which she took the place of one of the four saxophone players and scatted with the other three.