Stories of Standards: Autumn Leaves

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, December 17 through 21, presented by Rodney Franks!

Stories of Standards is sponsored by ListenUp - If you love music, you’ll love ListenUp.

Hungary-born Joseph Kosma’s claim to fame was primarily as a film composer. He composed his first opera at age 11.  Upon moving to France at age 28, he met poet-screenwriter Jacques Prévert. Kosma ended up setting several of Prévert’s poems to music. The most famous of these was “Autumn Leaves,” written in French as “Les Feuilles Mortes.” It’s latter title was more attractive than “dead leaves.”  Prévert also introduced Kosma to filmmaker Jean Renoir.

“Autumn Leaves” was originally written for the 1946 Marcel Carné film “Les Portes de La Nuit” (“Gates of the Night”), in which Yves Montand introduced the song. According to IMDB.com, Kosma composed for 138 films, and his music appears in another hundred.

JazzStandards.com notes that Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyrics in 1949, and Jo Stafford was the first to record the new version. Notable covers include versions by Cannonball Adderley, pianists Errol Garner, Keith Jarrett, Ahmad Jamal, and Roger Williams, whose version became the only piano instrumental to hit number one in 1955 (Nebraska Music Hall of Fame).

The publishing rights to “Autumn Leaves” are managed by Paul McCartney’s MPL Communications (which also controls publishing rights for songs by Fats Waller, Louis Jordan and Bessie Smith).

“Autumn Leaves” ranks as the 11th most all-time recorded jazz standard by Jazz Standards.  The KUVO library holds an estimated 270 jazz versions of “Autumn Leaves.”