"Autumn Leaves" is a
popular song and
jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions that 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 lis ...
composed by
Joseph Kosma
Joseph Kosma (22 October 19057 August 1969) was a Hungarian-French composer.
Biography
Kosma was born József Kozma in Budapest, where his parents taught stenography and typing. He had a brother, Ákos. A maternal relative was the photographe ...
in 1945 with original lyrics by
Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert (; 4 February 1900 – 11 April 1977) was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. His best-regarded films formed part of the poetic realist moveme ...
in French (original French title: "Les Feuilles mortes"), and later by
Johnny Mercer in English. An instrumental version by pianist
Roger Williams
Roger Williams (21 September 1603between 27 January and 15 March 1683) was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation ...
was a number one best-seller in the
US ''Billboard'' charts of 1955.
Background
Kosma was a native of Hungary who was introduced to Prévert in Paris. They collaborated on the song ' ("The Dead Leaves") for the 1946 film ''
Les Portes de la nuit (Gates of the Night)'' where it was sung by
Irène Joachim
Irène Joachim (13 March 1913 - 20 April 2001) was a French soprano, and later a vocal teacher.
Early life
Daughter of German officer Herman Joachim and French violinist Suzanne Chaigneau, and granddaughter of the violinist Joseph Joachim, she l ...
and
Yves Montand
Ivo Livi (), better known as Yves Montand (; 13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer.
Early life
Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, to Giovanni Livi, a broom manufacturer, Ivo held strong ...
.
The poem was published, after the death of Jacques Prévert, in the book "
Soleil de Nuit" in 1980. Kosma was influenced by a piece of ballet music, "Rendez-vous" written for Roland Petit, performed in Paris at the end of the Second World War, large parts of the melodies are exactly the same, which was itself borrowed partially from "Poème d'octobre" by
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther' ...
.
The first commercial recordings of "Les Feuilles mortes" were released in 1950, by and by
Yves Montand
Ivo Livi (), better known as Yves Montand (; 13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer.
Early life
Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, to Giovanni Livi, a broom manufacturer, Ivo held strong ...
.
Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyric and gave it the title "Autumn Leaves". Mercer was a partner in
Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note ...
at the time, and Capitol recording artist
Jo Stafford
Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop music singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classi ...
made the first English-language recording in July, 1950.
Structure and chord progression
The song is in
AABC form. "Autumn Leaves" offers a popular way for beginning jazz musicians to become acquainted with
jazz harmony
Jazz harmony is the theory and practice of how chords are used in jazz music. Jazz bears certain similarities to other practices in the tradition of Western harmony, such as many chord progressions, and the incorporation of the major and min ...
as the
chord progression
In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice ...
consists almost solely of
ii–V–I and ii–V sequences which are typical of jazz. Although it is in most times played in
G minor
G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has two flats. Its relative major is B-flat major and its parallel major is G major.
According to Paolo Pietropaolo, it is the con ...
, the original key of the composition was A minor.
The song's iv
7–bVII
7–bIII
maj7–bVI
maj7–ii
ø7–V
7–i chord progression is an example of the
circle-of-fifths progression.
:
\relative c'
Other versions
As a
jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions that 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 lis ...
, "Autumn Leaves" has accumulated more than a thousand commercial recordings.
The song was recorded steadily throughout the 1950s by leading pop vocalists including
Steve Conway (1950),
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...
(1950),
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...
(1955),
Doris Day
Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, " Sent ...
(1956), and
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
(1957). It was also quickly adopted by instrumental jazz artists including
Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, actor and author of both fiction and non-fiction.
Widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists", Shaw led ...
(1950),
Stan Getz (1952),
Erroll Garner
Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1921 – January 2, 1977) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad "Misty", his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard. It was first rec ...
and
Ahmad Jamal (separately in 1955),
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...
(1957),
Cannonball Adderley and
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
,
Vince Guaraldi
Vincent Anthony Guaraldi (; birth name, né Dellaglio, July 17, 1928 – February 6, 1976) was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the ''Peanuts'' comic strip. His compositions for this s ...
(all 1958), and
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...
(1962, maybe earlier).
Roger Williams
Roger Williams (21 September 1603between 27 January and 15 March 1683) was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation ...
made the song a
number-one hit in the U.S. in 1955,
the first piano instrumental to reach number one.
Composer
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
has written a
contrafact
A contrafact is a musical work based on a prior work. The term comes from classical music and has only since the 1940s been applied to jazz, where it is still not standard. In classical music, contrafacts have been used as early as the parody ma ...
of the song (1965), using the same principle of small repetitive cells of melody and rhythm first put in use in his breakthrough piece, ''
In C'' (1964).
In 2012, jazz historian Philippe Baudoin called the song "the most important non-American standard" and noted that "it has been recorded about 1400 times by mainstream and modern jazz musicians alone and is the eighth most-recorded tune by jazzmen."
The song is heavily referenced in "La Chanson de Prévert", a song by
Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg (; born Lucien Ginsburg; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French musician, singer-songwriter, actor, author and filmmaker. Regarded as one of the most important figures in French pop, he was renowned for often provoca ...
.
References
External links
"Autumn Leaves"at jazzstandards.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Autumn Leaves (song)
1940s jazz standards
1945 songs
1955 singles
Number-one singles in the United States
Pop standards
Torch songs
Eva Cassidy songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Manfred Mann songs
The Coasters songs
Nat King Cole songs
Songs with lyrics by Johnny Mercer
Compositions by Joseph Kosma