Sinatra swings Arlen's GET HAPPY. Arlen left Buffalo to go to New York as a singer even though he had been a pianist and arranger of small jazz combos. He landed a role in a musical developed by established songwriter Vincent Youmans. That project fell through. He then worked as a rehearsal pianist for a show where he would use a little two-bar vamp to signal the dancers with a 'pick-up." Harry Warren, another established songwriter asked Arlen about his little musical sequence. Arlen replied " Nothing I was just playing around with the pickup." Warren thought the tune needed words and then suggested that he knew someone who could create the words for that tune.
That is when lyricist Ted Koehler entered Arlen's life and helped launch a major songwriting career.
Get Happy was Arlen's first professional song and as a kind of a spiritual "picker-upper" it led to more successful collaborations with Koehler as they wrote a number of famous songs for the legendary Cotton Club Reviews.
In this version, Franks swings Get Happy with a fine Nelson Riddle arrangement. Sinatra had every reason to be happy because his record contract with Capitol records revived his career and his partnership with Nelson Riddle led to so many fine recordings.
Unfortunately, the verse is not performed by Sinatra . An Ella Fitzgerald version does use the verse which does serve to set the mood and theme for the main chorus and verse.
SiNATRA VERSION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OawAwugtA4
ELLA FITZGERALD VERSION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rcgHdMZN0U
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