On Green Dolphin Street (song)

"On Green Dolphin Street" is a 1947 jazz standard composed by Bronisław Kaper with lyrics by Ned Washington. The song was written for the film Green Dolphin Street, starring Lana Turner and Van Heflin, which was based on a 1944 novel of the same name by Elizabeth Goudge.^[1]

Jazz critic Ted Gioia noted that the song appeals to jazz musicians "because of its engaging chord changes, which alternate between eight bars of floating pedal point and eight bars of rapid harmonic movement."^[2]

The song was revived in 1956 by jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal on his album Count 'Em 88. As Gioia notes, Jamal's "repertoire choices were often mimicked" at this time by Miles Davis, and "Jamal's performance, with its artful use of space and dynamics, anticipates Davis's later rendition, especially with its shifting rhythmic textures." Davis's sextet version from 1958, with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Bill Evans, solidified the song's position as a jazz classic.^[3] It has gone on to become one of the most widely covered of all jazz standards, with more than 700 versions to date.^[4][5]

Gioia wrote: "Vocalists occasionally tackle this song, but the lyrics suffer from shallowness. If you fell in love, would you sing about your beloved or just her address?" Among vocal versions, he prefers the one by Mark Murphy from 1961.^[6]