Fact #53967
When:
Short story:
Chick Webb and his Orchestra, with Ella Fitzgerald on vocals, begin a lengthy engagement at The Flamingo Room in Levaggi's Restaurant, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Playing in the restaurant's basement are The Ink Spots.Full article:
Van Alexander (musical arranger) : Chick and his band were playing in Boston, at a place called Levaggi's Restaurant. And they were broadcasting, coast-to-coast, about three or four times a week.
My assignment was to do three arrangements a week for the band, mostly Ella's things. They were there for about five weeks at this place, and in the basement, there was a group called The Ink Spots, the first Ink Spots group. They were handled by the same manager that handled Chick and Ella.
So, anyhow, one day I got to Boston, Ella says to me, 'I got a great idea for a song. Why don't you try to work up something on the old nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket?'
I said, 'Gee, that is a great idea, Ella, lemme think about it.' Well Chick, as I said, had given me assignments for the following two-weeks - that would be six tunes - and so I just didn't have time to think about A-Tisket, A-Tasket.
She said, 'Did you think about it?' I said, 'I thought about it, Ella, but I just didn't have the time. The following week, the same thing happened, I didn't get to it, and this time, Ella got a little testy (which she'd never done). She said, 'Well, look, if you don't want to do it, I'll ask Edgar to do it, 'cause I think it's too good an idea to... " 'Hold the phone! I'll get to it next week, I promise ya.'
Now, you gotta realize, the old nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket was in public domain. There was never really a song, it was just a little rhythm thing that the kids used to sing. What I did was to put it into form, a 32-bar song. I put the release, the bridge to it, and all the novelty things to it ('Was it red? No-no, no-no. Was it blue?' and so forth).
I brought it up to Boston, and Ella and I went over it and she changed a lot of the words. I had written, in the middle part, I said, 'She was walkin' on down the avenue, without a single thing to do,' and Ella said, 'Let's say she was truckin' on down the avenue.' Not walkin, truckin', 'cause that was a big word in those days, you know. So I said, 'Yes, great!' And she changed a few other lyrics also.
Well, they put it on the air that night, and somebody telephoned Robbins Music in New York and asked them to take [an acetate] off the air. And they did, and they got excited about it, and two-weeks later, went to New York, to Decca Records, and recorded it -- on my birthday, incidentally - May 2nd, 1938. It was a big hit that summer, and on the Lucky Strike Hit Parade, which was the big radio program in those days, it stayed No1 for nineteen weeks.
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My assignment was to do three arrangements a week for the band, mostly Ella's things. They were there for about five weeks at this place, and in the basement, there was a group called The Ink Spots, the first Ink Spots group. They were handled by the same manager that handled Chick and Ella.
So, anyhow, one day I got to Boston, Ella says to me, 'I got a great idea for a song. Why don't you try to work up something on the old nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket?'
I said, 'Gee, that is a great idea, Ella, lemme think about it.' Well Chick, as I said, had given me assignments for the following two-weeks - that would be six tunes - and so I just didn't have time to think about A-Tisket, A-Tasket.
She said, 'Did you think about it?' I said, 'I thought about it, Ella, but I just didn't have the time. The following week, the same thing happened, I didn't get to it, and this time, Ella got a little testy (which she'd never done). She said, 'Well, look, if you don't want to do it, I'll ask Edgar to do it, 'cause I think it's too good an idea to... " 'Hold the phone! I'll get to it next week, I promise ya.'
Now, you gotta realize, the old nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket was in public domain. There was never really a song, it was just a little rhythm thing that the kids used to sing. What I did was to put it into form, a 32-bar song. I put the release, the bridge to it, and all the novelty things to it ('Was it red? No-no, no-no. Was it blue?' and so forth).
I brought it up to Boston, and Ella and I went over it and she changed a lot of the words. I had written, in the middle part, I said, 'She was walkin' on down the avenue, without a single thing to do,' and Ella said, 'Let's say she was truckin' on down the avenue.' Not walkin, truckin', 'cause that was a big word in those days, you know. So I said, 'Yes, great!' And she changed a few other lyrics also.
Well, they put it on the air that night, and somebody telephoned Robbins Music in New York and asked them to take [an acetate] off the air. And they did, and they got excited about it, and two-weeks later, went to New York, to Decca Records, and recorded it -- on my birthday, incidentally - May 2nd, 1938. It was a big hit that summer, and on the Lucky Strike Hit Parade, which was the big radio program in those days, it stayed No1 for nineteen weeks.