Body and Soul (song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Body and Soul" is the title of a popular song written in 1930 by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, Frank Eyton and Johnny Green. It was introduced in the revue Three's A Crowd by Libby Holman and used as a soundtrack theme in the 1947 film.

The song later became a jazz standard, with hundreds of versions performed and recorded by dozens of artists. By far the most famous of these is the take recorded by Coleman Hawkins and His Orchestra on October 11, 1939 at their only recording session for Bluebird, a subsidiary of RCA Victor. Hawkins' solo on this take is considered to be "one of the finest examples of pure, spontaneous creative artistry in the history of jazz." It was one of the first straight jazz records to become a commercial hit. This was unexpected, as the theme of the tune is never directly stated, Hawkins having improvised almost the entire take. In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.