"Our Delight"
Song by Dizzy Gillespie
from the album Our Delight
Released1946
RecordedJuly 9, 1946
Length2:27
LabelMusicraft
Composer(s)Tadd Dameron

"Our Delight" is a 1946 jazz standard, composed by Tadd Dameron.[1] It is considered one of his best compositions along with "Good Bait", "Hot House", "If You Could See Me Now", and "Lady Bird".[2][3] It has an AABA construction.[4] A moderately fast bebop song, it featured the trumpeter Fats Navarro, who is said to "exhibit mastery of the difficult chord progression".[5] One author said, "'Our Delight' is a genuine song, a bubbly, jaggedly ascending theme that sticks in one's mind, enriched by harmonic interplay between a flaming trumpet section led by Dizzy, creamy moaning reeds and crooning trombones. The written accompaniments to the solos-in particular the leader's two statements-are full of inventiveness, creating call-and-response patterns and counter-melodies. What is boppish here is the off-center, syncopated melody, as well as the shifting, internal voicings of the chords, especially at the very end. These voicings, along with a love of tuneful melodies that one walks out of a jazz club humming, were Tadd's main legacy to such composers and arrangers as Benny Golson, Gigi Gryce, and Jimmy Heath."[6] Rolling Stone describes it as a "bop gem".[7] The first publication is by Dizzy Gillespie in August 1946. In total there are more than 120 covers of Our Delight.[8] Bill Evans recorded his version of it for his debut album New Jazz Conceptions in 1956.[7]

References

  1. ^ Randel, Don Michael (1996). The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. Harvard University Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-674-37299-3. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  2. ^ Gioia, Ted (9 May 2011). The History of Jazz. Oxford University Press. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-19-539970-7. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  3. ^ Yanow, Scott (2005). Jazz: a regional exploration. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-313-32871-8. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  4. ^ Owens, Thomas (1996). Bebop: The Music and Its Players. Oxford University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-19-510651-0.
  5. ^ Carnes, Mark Christopher; Betz, Paul R. (12 May 2005). American National Biography: Supplement. American Council of Learned Societies, Oxford University Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-19-522202-9. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  6. ^ Rosenthal, David H. (9 September 1993). Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965. Oxford University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-19-508556-3. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  7. ^ a b Swenson, John (27 April 1999). Rolling Stone Jazz and Blues Album Guide. Random House. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-679-76873-9. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  8. ^ cover.info database accessed November 6, 2022
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