Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra with Jack Leonard, “Indian Summer” (1940)
Music by Victor Herbert (1919, as “An American Idyll”) and lyrics by Al Dubin (1939, in response to a contest by Herbert’s estate). It’s the only piece of Herbert’s that actually sounds American, in conversation with composers like Kern and Berlin rather than Lehár and Friml; by ’39 it fit snugly into the American pastoral song tradition popularized by Carmichael and Arlen, and feels of a piece with “Ole Buttermilk Sky” and “Stormy Weather.”
This was the first hit rendition. Leonard’s vocal is sometimes erroneously attributed to Frank Sinatra, who was singing for Dorsey during the same period but didn’t wax this number. (His 1968 version with Duke Ellington is worth hearing, though.)
Source: Spotify
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