The Song Is You
 

The Song Is You was written by Jerome Kern in 1932. This copy of my attached score was written in June, 1963. It was my second for this setting, i.e., jazz band w/strings, woodwinds and harp. I do hope my descriptions for these works don't sound pretentious. I don't mean them to be. I want simply to explain the circumstances surrounding their creation.

Our scores for the Band were handed in transposed, so the copyists didn't have to do the transposition while creating the parts, but I prefer to view them in concert to better visualize the voicings, so I've left the score in concert. Therefore, the tenor saxophone adlib solo at Rehearsal Mark 6 has the lead line in concert key, but the chord symbols, which are in Free Text are transposed. Also, unlike my previous submission, I put the lead line in for the solo, instead of having empty space with only bass and drums. If anyone wants to play along in that section, it would be easy enough to remove the lead line. Note that the piano chords in that section are in concert. Note also that the bass part would be copied out transposed up one octave.

As in Poor Butterfly, the clarinets have separate staves, whereas in reality, they would have been copied out on the saxophone parts for this instrumentation. Also, the staff for Flute 1 & 2 has quite a bit of piccolo, which is scored as two flutes in octaves. The midi sound is roughly the same.

Hopefully you have a good midi instrument to export this to for sampling. I find that the drum sounds are pretty bad on my PC sound card. For instance, what is supposed to be a nice clean rim shot in midi, sounds like a pair of finger cymbals on my PC.

I hope you find some benefit in seeing/hearing this piece.

Ralph Rayner

Re: The Song Is You
 

Hi Ralph,
I played this using the Merlin Creative soundfonts. I changed the piano staves from celesta to piano. Then played it, then again. Quite simply, I love this arrangement.
all best,
mgj