Night and Day (song)
Encyclopedia
"Night and Day" is a popular song by Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...

. It was written for the 1932 musical play Gay Divorce
Gay Divorce
Gay Divorce is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Dwight Taylor, adapted by Kenneth Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein. It was Fred Astaire's last Broadway show and featured the hit song "Night and Day" in which Astaire danced with co-star Claire Luce.It was made into a musical...

. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook
Great American Songbook
The Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...

 and has been recorded by dozens of artists.

Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

 introduced "Night and Day" on stage, and his recording of the song was a #1 hit. He performed it again in the 1934 film version of the show, renamed The Gay Divorcee
The Gay Divorcee
The Gay Divorcee is a 1934 American film based on the musical play Gay Divorce written by Dwight Taylor, Kenneth S. Webb, Samuel Hoffenstein, with screenplay by George Marion Jr., Dorothy Yost and Edward Kaufman, from an unproduced play by J. Hartley Manners...

, and it became one of his signature pieces.

Porter was known to claim that the Islamic call to worship
Adhan
The adhān is the Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin at prescribed times of the day. The root of the word is meaning "to permit"; another derivative of this word is , meaning "ear"....

 he heard on a trip to Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 inspired the song. Another popular legend has it he was inspired by the Moorish architecture of the Alcazar Hotel
Alcazar Hotel (Cleveland Heights, Ohio)
The Alcazar Hotel is a registered historic building in the Cedar-Fairmount district of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, listed in the National Register on 1979-04-17. The hotel was built in 1923 in the Spanish-Moorish style, based on hotels such as the Alcazar and Ponce de León in St. Augustine, Florida...

 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

The song was so associated with Porter that when Hollywood first filmed his life story in 1946, the movie was entitled Night and Day
Night and Day
- Literature :* Night and Day , a novel by Robert B. Parker* Night and Day , a 1919 novel by Virginia Woolf- Music :* "Night and Day" , written by Cole Porter...

.

Notable recordings

"Night and Day" has been recorded many times, notably by Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...

, Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...

, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...

, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....

, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

, Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...

, Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

, Sondre Lerche
Sondre Lerche
-Career:Sondre Lerche was born in Bergen, Norway. Growing up, Lerche was heavily influenced by the '80s pop that emanated from his older siblings' rooms. Compelled by a defining fascination for bands such as The Beatles, A-ha, the Beach Boys, and Prefab Sprout, Lerche began formal guitar...

, Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...

, Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....

, Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.- Early...

, Etta James
Etta James
Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...

, and U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

.

Sinatra recorded the song over five times including: with Axel Stordahl
Axel Stordahl
Axel Stordahl was an arranger who was active from the late 1930s through the 1950s. He is perhaps best known for his work with Frank Sinatra in the 1940s at Columbia Records...

 in his first solo session in 1942 and again with him in 1947; with Nelson Riddle
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...

 in 1956 for A Swingin' Affair!
A Swingin' Affair!
A Swingin' Affair! is the tenth studio album by Frank Sinatra. It is claimed to be the sequel to Songs for Swingin' Lovers."The Lady Is a Tramp" was bumped from the original album and replaced with "No One Ever Tells You", which had been recorded months earlier. Later, "The Lady is a Tramp"...

, with Don Costa
Don Costa
Don Costa was an American pop music arranger and record producer, best known for his work with Frank Sinatra.-Career:...

 in 1961 for Sinatra and Strings
Sinatra and Strings
Sinatra and Strings is a 1962 album by Frank Sinatra. The set of standard ballads is one of the most critically acclaimed works of Sinatra's entire Reprise period.It was Sinatra's first album with arranger Don Costa...

, and even a disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

 version with Joe Beck
Joe Beck
Joe Beck was an American guitarist who had been notable in jazz for more than 30 years.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Beck also briefly flirted with rock music in the late 1960s and early 1970s...

 in 1977.

Dionne Warwick recorded it for her 1990 album Dionne Warwick Sings Cole Porter.

Shirley Bassey recorded it for her 1959 album The Bewitching Miss Bassey
The Bewitching Miss Bassey
The Bewitching Miss Bassey is a studio album from Shirley Bassey. Consisting of new and previously released material this was the first album from Bassey to be issued on the 12" Long-playing record format. Tracks were taken from sessions recorded between 1956 and early 1959. All the songs were...

.

Doris Day recorded it for her 1958 album Hooray for Hollywood
Hooray for Hollywood (album)
Hooray for Hollywood was the name of a two-album set recorded by Doris Day, released by Columbia Records. The two-album set was released by Columbia under the catalog number AC2L-5, but each individual LP was also released in both monaural and stereophonic versions as indicated below.-Volume...

.

Fitzgerald's most celebrated recording of the song occurred on her 1956 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook is a 1956 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by a studio orchestra conducted and arranged by Buddy Bregman, focusing on the songs of Cole Porter....

.

Everything But the Girl
Everything but the Girl
Everything but the Girl was a two-person English band, formed in Hull during 1981, consisting of lead singer and occasional guitarist Tracey Thorn and guitarist, keyboardist, and singer Ben Watt . They are currently inactive although vocalist Tracey Thorn hinted that they may reform someday...

 chose this song for their first single in 1983. It made #92 in August 1982.

The song was recorded by Ringo Starr in 1970 for his first solo album Sentimental Journey.

The rock/jam band Phish
Phish
Phish is an American rock band noted for its musical improvisation, extended jams, and exploration of music across genres. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 , the band's four members – Trey Anastasio , Mike Gordon , Jon Fishman , and Page McConnell Phish is an American rock band...

 has played the song live only once in their 20 plus year career: at a private wedding on August 12, 1989.

The song was recorded by U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

 in 1990 and appeared on the Red Hot + Blue
Red Hot + Blue
Red Hot + Blue is the first in the series of compilation albums from the Red Hot Organization. The recording was the first in the Red Hot Benefit Series...

compilation album. Thomas Anders
Thomas Anders
Thomas Anders is a German singer, composer and record producer. Anders was the lead singer of Germany's popular pop-duo Modern Talking in 1984–1987 and in 1998–2003.-Early years:...

 (of Modern Talking
Modern Talking
Modern Talking was a German dance pop duo consisting of Thomas Anders and Dieter Bohlen. Their music has often been classified as Europop. They have been referred to as Germany's most successful pop duo, and have had a number of hit singles, reaching the top 5 in many countries...

 fame) recorded his version in 1997 on the album Live Concert
Live Concert (album)
Live Concert is the title of the seventh album by singer-songwriter & producer Thomas Anders. It is his first solo album to be recorded live....

. Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 added a version in 1995 on their return-to-their-roots-disc, Night & Day: Big Band; Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

 recorded a version for his 2004 album Stardust: the Great American Songbook 3
Stardust: the Great American Songbook 3
Stardust: the Great American Songbook 3, released in 2004, is Rod Stewart's third album of Pop standards. The album was dedicated to the Tartan Army.-Chart Performance:...

. A rendition was also recorded by The Temptations
The Temptations
The Temptations is an American vocal group having achieved fame as one of the most successful acts to record for Motown Records. The group's repertoire has included, at various times during its five-decade career, R&B, doo-wop, funk, disco, soul, and adult contemporary music.Formed in Detroit,...

, which was featured on the soundtrack of the 2000 movie What Women Want
What Women Want
What Women Want is a 2000 American romantic comedy film, directed by Nancy Meyers and starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. The movie was a box office success with a domestic gross of $182,811,707 and a worldwide gross of $374,111,707, against a budget of $70 million.-Plot:Nick Marshall, a Chicago...

.

"Night and Day" also reappeared on the American pop charts in 1967, done by Sérgio Mendes
Sergio Mendes
Sérgio Santos Mendes is a Brazilian musician. He has released over thirty-five albums, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk....

 and Brasil '66.

In 2004 a version of "Night and Day" was included in the biographical film about Cole Porter, De-Lovely
De-Lovely
De-Lovely is a 2004 musical biopic directed by Irwin Winkler. The screenplay by Jay Cocks is based on the life and career of Cole Porter, from his first meeting with Linda Lee Thomas until his death...

, sung by John Barrowman
John Barrowman
John Scot Barrowman is a Scottish-American singer, actor, dancer, musical theatre performer and media personality. Born in Glasgow yet growing up in Illinois after his family emigrated to the United States when he was eight years old, Barrowman was encouraged to further his love for music and...

 and Kevin Kline
Kevin Kline
Kevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...

. The song was also recorded in 2005 by Sondre Lerche
Sondre Lerche
-Career:Sondre Lerche was born in Bergen, Norway. Growing up, Lerche was heavily influenced by the '80s pop that emanated from his older siblings' rooms. Compelled by a defining fascination for bands such as The Beatles, A-ha, the Beach Boys, and Prefab Sprout, Lerche began formal guitar...

 on his album Duper Sessions
Duper Sessions
Duper Sessions is the third album by Norwegian singer/songwriter and guitarist Sondre Lerche, released in Norway on February 27, 2006, and in the U.S. on March 21, 2006. The album entered the Billboard Official Top Contemporary Jazz Albums Chart at #5...

. In 2007 it was recorded by Bebel Gilberto
Bebel Gilberto
Bebel Gilberto is a Brazilian popular singer often associated with bossa nova. She is the daughter of João Gilberto and singer Miúcha. Her uncle is singer/composer Chico Buarque...

 with a bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...

 approach on her album Momento
Momento (album)
-Track listing:# "Momento" - 5:16# "Bring Back the Love" - 4:29# "Close to You" - 3:20# "Os Novos Yorkinos" - 3:41# "Azul" - 3:13# "Caçada" - 4:34# "Night and Day" - 4:57# "Tranquilo" - 4:06# "Um Segundo" - 3:12# "Cadê Você?" - 3:32# "Words" - 2:30...

.

Allan Sherman
Allan Sherman
Allan Sherman was an American comedy writer and television producer who became famous as a song parodist in the early 1960s. His first album, My Son, the Folk Singer , became the fastest-selling record album up to that time...

's 1965 album Allan in Wonderland included a version, with Porter's music and words unchanged, but "With Punctuation
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...

 Marks Included, so it starts like this:
Night and Day;
You are the one;
Only you, beneath the moon, and under the sun ;


Victor Borge
Victor Borge
Victor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...

 was better known for verbal punctuation than was Sherman, but in the case of this song, Borge would start playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" op. 27, with its opening left-hand octave, and then would begin playing the three right-hand notes, seguéing into the beginning of "Night and Day".

Little River Band
Little River Band
Little River Band is an Australian rock band, formed in Melbourne in early 1975.The group chose the name after passing a road sign leading to the Victorian township of Little River, near Geelong, on the way to a performance. Little River Band enjoyed sustained commercial success in not only...

 references the song in their song Reminiscing
Reminiscing
"Reminiscing" is a 1978 song written by Graeham Goble, and performed by Australian rock music group Little River Band. It remains their greatest success in the United States, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that same year. The song is about a couple reminiscing about the past, with...

. One line of the song states "And the Porter tune/Made us dance across the room", while in the background the backup singers sing the words "Night and Day".

Song structure

The construction of "Night And Day" is unusual for a hit song of the 1930s. Most popular tunes then featured 32-bar choruses, divided into four 8-bar sections, usually with an AABA musical structure, the B section representing the bridge.

Porter's song, on the other hand, has a chorus of 48 bars, divided into 6 sections of 8 bars — ABABCB — with section C representing the bridge.

Harmonic structure

"Night And Day" has unusual chord changes (the underlying harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

).

The tune begins with a pedal (repeated) dominant with a major seventh
Major seventh
In classical music from Western culture, a seventh is a musical interval encompassing seven staff positions , and the major seventh is one of two commonly occurring sevenths. It is qualified as major because it is the larger of the two...

 chord built on the flattened sixth of the key, which then resolves to the dominant seventh in the next bar. If performed in the key of B, the first chord is therefore G major seventh, with an F (the major seventh above the harmonic root) in the melody, before resolving to F7 and eventually B maj7.

This section repeats and is followed by a descending harmonic sequence starting with a -75 (half diminished seventh chord or Ø) built on the augmented fourth of the key, and descending by semitones — with changes in the chord quality— to the supertonic
Supertonic
In music or music theory, the supertonic is the second degree or note of a diatonic scale, one step above the tonic. In music theory, the supertonic chord is symbolized by the Roman numeral ii in a major scale, indicating that the chord is a minor chord , or ii in a natural minor scale, indicating...

 minor seventh which forms the beginning of a more standard II-V-I progression. In B, this sequence begins with an EØ, followed by an E-7, D-7 and D dim, before resolving onto C-7 (the supertonic minor seventh) and cadencing onto B.

The bridge
Bridge (music)
In music, especially western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section which also prepares for the return of the original material section...

 is also unusual, with an immediate, fleeting and often (depending on the version) unprepared key change up a minor third, before an equally transient and unexpected return to the key centre. In B, the bridge begins with a D major seventh, then moves back to B with a B major seventh chord. This repeats, and is followed by a recapitulation of the second section outlined above.

The vocal verse is also unusual in that most of the melody consists entirely of a single note — the same dominant pedal that begins the body of the song — with rather inconclusive and unusual harmonies underneath.

Some have seen the use of repeated notes in the verse as an indication of the singer's obsession.

In popular culture

  • This song was mentioned in Stephen King
    Stephen King
    Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

    's short story "1408".
  • This song is also featured in the video game Bioshock
    Bioshock
    BioShock is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Boston and designed by Ken Levine. It was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 on August 21, 2007 in North America, and three days later in Europe and Australia. It became available on Steam on August 21, 2007...

    .
  • This song is also featured in an episode of The Cosby Show, season 2, episode 3.

External links

  • "Night and Day" performed on British TV by British singer Alma Cogan
    Alma Cogan
    Alma Cogan was an English singer of traditional pop music in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dubbed "The Girl With the Laugh/Giggle/Chuckle In Her Voice", she was the highest paid British female entertainer of her era...

    .
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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