Stories of Standards: “What’s New?”

Tune in to Jazz with Victor Cooper – weekdays from 6-9 a.m. MT – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long starting Monday, March 19!

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In 1938 Bob Haggart wrote an instrumental called “I’m Free”, meant to showcase trumpeter Billy Butterfield, also in Bob Crosby’s band at the time. The song was recorded the same day it was written. Written in C Major, with an F Major bridge, the solo has been described as “cantabile”, a style in which the instrumental solo sounds like a voice. In 1939 the publishers, seeing potential for a vocal hit, hired Johnny Burke to write lyrics using one side of a telephone conversation as the format, with the title “What’s New?”. The Bob Crosby Orchestra, with Teddy Grace singing, made the first recording in October 1938 and released it in 1939; it went to number ten on the pop charts. “What’s New?” is ranked #14 by jazzstandard.com.

Bob Haggart (1914-1998) taught himself trumpet, cornet, piano and tuba, studied guitar with George van Eps, then taught himself double-bass and was selected as Best Bassist of 1937 in a Metronome magazine poll. As one of the founding members of Bob Crosby’s Bobcats he wrote arrangements which formed the basis for the band’s long-term traditional jazz sound. He worked with Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, among many others and appeared at jazz festivals until shortly before his death.

Johnny Burke (1908-1964) wrote lyrics for 400+ songs and 50+ movies; at one time he had five songs on the Hit Parade at the same time. Burke’s first major success was with “Pennies From Heaven”, co-written with Arthur Johnston and performed by Bing Crosby. Burke worked at Paramount Pictures for the entirety of his movie career (1939-1956) and of the films he worked on, 25 featured Bing Crosby. In 1959 Burke added lyrics to Erroll Garner’s song “Misty”, which became famous as Johnny Mathis’ theme song.