McHugh–Sunny Side Street, Int’l Review, 1930, Louie

It may be hard to believe, but it is Wednesday once again. We are going to continue to look at the music of Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields, shifting this time to (Lew Leslie’s) International Revue. The Revue opened on Broadway on February 25, 1930, and one of the big hits coming out of the show was a song called “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” Harry Richman introduced it on Broadway, and since then just about everyone has recorded it. The problem here is not what to play but what not to play.

As we listened to many of the recordings, we came away with three conclusions: the recordings by stars were too slow; the recordings by small bands captured the sense of the song; and the arrangements/orchestrations by swing bands are still being performed. So, we are going to devote two days to this song: today we are going to listen to the small band sound, and on Saturday we will cover the big band sound.

Let’s start with Louis Armstrong. He always provides a good foundation.