Morning Sing: May 20, 2020
This morning’s sing is 1933’s Stormy Weather , by Harold Arlen (composer of Over the Rainbow) and Ted Koehler. I encountered the 1943 movie by the same name while in college, and it impressed me with both the musical numbers and in the amazing costuming for Lena Horne, which seemed to me to be designed to flatter the female body, rather than designed for “inspiration” that the body then needed to be molded to fit. My friends and I watched the movie over and over.
In its July 2018 review of the 75th anniversary of the film’s release, the Saturday Evening Post said, “The movie is [loosely] based on the life of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Horne plays Selina Rogers, a character invented for the film. Although it was Horne’s second big musical in a year, it was still notably unusual at the time for a studio picture to feature an African-American cast.
Other huge stars appeared with Robinson and Horne. In addition to Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers, the film featured singer Ada Brown, dancer Katherine Dunham, and the legendary Fats Waller. To take full advantage of the cast, the film includes 20 musical numbers, despite a brisk running time of 77 minutes. Waller plays his own “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” Calloway conducts and sings “Jumpin’ Jive” (which he co-wrote), and the Nicholas Brothers do a dynamic dance along with the tune. In fact, the Nicholas Brothers’ dance remains one of the most famous scenes from the film; Fred Astaire himself declared it “the greatest musical number that he had ever seen.”
Words by Ted Koehler
Music by Harold Arlen
© 1933 by Mills Music Inc.
