"If I Were a Bell" is a song composed by Frank Loesser

Frank Loesser

Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...

 for his 1950 musical Guys and Dolls.

Guys and Dolls

In the show Guys and Dolls, it is sung by the character Sister Sarah, originally performed by Isabel Bigley

Isabel Bigley

Isabel Bigley was an American actress, perhaps best remembered for originating the part of Sarah Brown in Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls.-Biography:...

 on Broadway, and memorialized on the original cast album. On a bet, Sky Masterson takes Sarah Brown to Havana to have dinner and gets her very drunk. Sarah's still social barriers fall away and she realizes she is in love with Sky, and he with her. She sings this after they have an eventful dinner but Sky refuses to take advantage of her drunkenness. It was also recorded by Lizbeth Webb who created the part in the original London production at the Coliseum Theatre.

Miles Davis

It has become 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...

 since it was featured by trumpeter Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

, on the 1956 Prestige

Prestige Records

Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...

 album Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet

Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet

Relaxin' with The Miles Davis Quintet is an album recorded in 1956 by Miles Davis. Two sessions on 11 May 1956 and 26 October in the same year resulted in four albums—this one, Steamin' with The Miles Davis Quintet, Workin' with The Miles Davis Quintet and Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet...

. The Miles Davis Quintet featured tenor saxophone

Tenor saxophone

The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...

 player John Coltrane

John Coltrane

John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

, pianist Red Garland

Red Garland

William "Red" Garland was an American hard bop jazz pianist whose block chord style, in part originated by Milt Buckner, influenced many forthcoming pianists in the jazz idiom.-Beginnings:...

, bassist Paul Chambers

Paul Chambers

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. was a jazz bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period but also his impeccable time, intonation, and virtuosic...

, and drummer Philly Joe Jones

Philly Joe Jones

Joseph Rudolph Jones was a Philadelphia-born United States jazz drummer, known as the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet.Philly Joe Jones was often confused with another influential jazz drummer, Jo Jones...

. The song became a Miles Davis speciality and it appears on several live session recordings and compilations in different versions. The tune was taken up and performed by countless jazz musicians and is still a favourite in jam session

Jam session

Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...

s. So closely is the tune associated with Miles Davis that it is often miscredited as one of his own original compositions.

The Cosby Show

The Miles Davis version was also famously used in the final scene of the final episode of The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992...

 when Cliff has rigged the doorbell outside to play the opening notes of the song. Then he and Claire dance off the set to it, breaking the fourth wall.

Covers

Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...

 covered the song for her album "In the Land of Hi-Fi

In the Land of Hi-Fi

In the Land of Hi-Fi was a series of albums released by EmArcy Records circa 1955.* In the Land of Hi-Fi by Patti Page* In the Land of Hi-Fi by Sarah Vaughan* In the Land of Hi-Fi by Dinah Washington...

" (1956)

In 1966, Petula Clark

Petula Clark

Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...

 recorded a version for the My Love

My Love (Petula Clark album)

My Love is an album released by Petula Clark; her first album to feature recording done in the United States, My Love was produced, arranged, and conducted by Tony Hatch. In the US, it was her fourth album licensed to Warner Bros. Records...

album.

In 2002, guitarist Chuck Loeb

Chuck Loeb

Chuck Loeb is a guitarist who performs numerous styles of music, most notably jazz. Loeb's own solo projects have generally been commercially successful crossover jazz, which has "contemporary" or "smooth" jazz....

 covered the song from his album "My Shining Hour."

Chelsea Krombach

Chelsea Krombach

-Biography:Krombach recorded two solo albums, Look for the Silver Lining and Profile Both of her albums are all-jazz and recorded live in one take with all real instruments...

 sings it on her debut album Profile (2004).

Amel Larrieux

Amel Larrieux

Amel Larrieux is an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter and keyboardist. Larrieux rose to fame in the mid 1990s as a founding member of the duo Groove Theory along with Bryce Wilson. After leaving the group in 1999, she released her debut solo album Infinite Possibilities the following year on...

 covered this song on her May 2007 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...

 cd Lovely Standards

Lovely Standards

Lovely Standards is the fourth studio album by American R&B-soul singer-songwriter Amel Larrieux, released in the United States on May 22, 2007 by Blisslife Records...

.

Blossom Dearie

Blossom Dearie

Blossom Dearie was an American jazz singer and pianist, often performing in the bebop genre and remembered for her girlish voice.-Early career:...

 did a version of this song on Once Upon a Summertime

Once Upon a Summertime

Once Upon a Summertime is a 1959 album by Blossom Dearie.This is the third in a series of six albums recorded by Dearie for the Verve label. The liner notes quote Dearie as saying "Norman Granz called and asked me to make another album with Tom Nola. He had Ray Brown playing bass, Mundell Lowe...

 with one of the classic Oscar Peterson rhythm sections of Ed Thigpen

Ed Thigpen

Edmund Leonard "Ed" Thigpen was an American jazz drummer, best-known for his work with the Oscar Peterson trio from 1959 to 1965...

 and Ray Brown

Ray Brown (musician)

Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist.-Biography:Ray Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had piano lessons from the age of eight. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but was unable to afford one...

 along with Mundell Lowe

Mundell Lowe

Mundell Lowe is an American jazz guitarist.Lowe was born in Laurel, Mississippi on 21 March 1922. In the 1930s he played country music and Dixieland jazz. He later played with big bands and orchestras, and on television in New York City. In the 1960s, Lowe composed music for films and television...

 on guitar.

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...

 sang the song as a duet with Joe Williams

Joe Williams (jazz singer)

Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...

, backed by 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, on Count Basie/Sarah Vaughan

Count Basie/Sarah Vaughan

Count Basie/Sarah Vaughan is a 1961 album by American jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, accompanied by the Count Basie Orchestra, with arrangements by Frank Foster, Thad Jones and Ernie Wilkins. According to James Gavin's liner notes to the 1996 CD release, Basie himself does not perform on any of the...

.

Holly Cole recorded it on her debut album Blame it on my Youth (1991).