Stardust (song)

"Stardust" is an American popular song composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with the lyrics added four years later by Mitchell Parish.^[1] "Stardust" (the song's original title was "Star Dust", which has long since been compounded into "Stardust"^[2]) was written at the Book Nook in Bloomington, Indiana (across the street from the Indiana University School of Law, where Carmichael had attended school ) on an old upright piano, and first recorded in Richmond, Indiana for Gennett Records by Carmichael's band in 1927 as a peppy jazz number. Carmichael said he was inspired by the types of improvisations made by Bix Beiderbecke. The tune at first only attracted moderate attention, mostly from fellow musicians, a few of whom (including Don Redman) recorded their own versions of Carmichael's tune. Carmichael reworked the piece as a slow ballad in 1929, and the same year Mitchell Parish added lyrics.^[clarify] Carmichael wanted to make a new recording for Gennett, but company executives vetoed the idea since they already had his earlier version in their catalogue. Bandleader Isham Jones, however, recorded Carmichael's new arrangement of "Stardust" which became the first of many hit records of the tune. By 1932 over two dozen other bands had recorded "Stardust". "Stardust" was covered by almost every prominent band of that time. An arrangement by Glenn Miller was great. Versions have been recorded by Louis Armstrong, Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Mel Tormé, Connie Francis, Harry Connick Jr, Ella Fitzgerald, The Peanuts, Django Reinhardt, Barry Manilow, John Coltrane, Rod Stewart, Willie Nelson, Billy Ward and the Dominoes, and an instrumental by the Jack Jenney Orchestra featuring Jack's long trombone solo cut one year before he repeated it with a shorter solo on Artie Shaw's recording. Unusually for a popular song, the verse is both highly melodic and musically sophisticated. Frank Sinatra famously recorded just the verse in a 1961 Reprise recording, much to Carmichael's chagrin (although Carmichael is said to have changed his mind on hearing the recording).

Legacy

"Stardust" is one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, with over 1,800 recordings, perhaps the last popular version by Spanky and Our Gang in 1968. In 1999, Stardust was included in the "NPR 100",^[3] in which National Public Radio sought to list the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century. In New Year 2000 the Swedish music reviewers voted it as "the tune of the century", with Kurt Weill's "Mack the Knife" as second. In 2004, Carmichael's original 1927 recording of the song was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

Trivia

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• On December 28, 1998, New York City radio station WQEW played the Nat "King" Cole version of Stardust. It was the last song played before the station switched to Radio Disney.
• In the motion picture Casino, based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi and Larry Shandling, the name of the real-life casino mentioned in the book, the Stardust Resort & Casino, was changed to the Tangiers. A very subtle nod to the casino's true identity was done by incorporating snippets of Carmichael's song "Stardust" into the soundtrack.

Notes

External links

• "Stardust" (played by Hoagy Carmichael, 1933) The Red Hot Jazz Archive
• "Stardust" (played by Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra, 1931) The Red Hot Jazz Archive
• "Stardust" (played by Fats Waller, 1937) The Red Hot Jazz Archive