I have always thought Vernon Duke / Yip Harburg’s April in Paris is particularly evocative of a time and place and a fantastic marriage of melody to lyric but I never really gave it’s origin much thought. It turns out Yip Harburg had never been to Paris. He wrote the lyrics at Lindy’s while looking out at the Winter Garden marquis. Here lies further proof that in songwriting “write what you feel” trumps “write what you know”. The song was composed for a 1932 musical revue called Walk a Little Faster that closed quickly. The show closed but the song survived.
Some of my favorite versions:
Instrumental:
Count Basie
Monk:
Erroll Garner:
Vocal:
Frank Sinatra:
Sarah Vaughan:
Inspiration:
A Tune as Parisian as Tin Pan Alley – NYTimes.com