Autumn Leaves

A couple of weeks ago, before the onset of our steady November rains, I lay abed one morning idly staring out our window wall into the back yard. (Until recently, I awoke and the feet hit the floor. Now, suddenly, I can laze about in bed for ten minutes or so. Must be that the trazadone Doc has prescribed to help me get to sleep is working its pharma-magic but on the other end of the night.)

Anyway, the oranges of the big leaf maples, the umber Japanese snowdrop leaves, the brilliant reds (I’m told) of the Japanese maples were drifting down in a gentle breeze from the south. Of course, Johnny Mercer’s Autumn Leaves became my ear worm for the day.

(I’d best explain that “I’m told.” I am partially color blind. I see oranges and yellows – at least my version of them: I have no idea what you see. But for reds and greens, they just don’t register. This time of year, Ann will call out some apparently vivid red which I don’t see. She gets mad at me: “Of course you do; you’re just saying that!” Now, if I had lung cancer or a broken leg she would she get angry? But my inability to share in her joy of color enrages her. I don’t get it.)

I asked Co-Pilot to help me trace the evolution of the song. I knew it was originally French; Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, and Juliette Greco among others made it a favorite from 1947 on. The French original, a poem by Jacques Pre'vert set to music by Joseph Kosma entitled The Dead Leaves, Les Feuilles Mortes, is a sad, philosophical lament on the inevitability of loss and death of one's love.

In 1947, Jo Stafford recorded an English version with adapted lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Adapted, not translated. Mercer’s take is more romantic, more focused on longing, nostalgia and sweet memory:

                But I miss you most of all, my Darling,

                When autumn leaves start to fall.

I acquaint it with high school, perhaps Jo Stafford's version mixed up with Nat King Cole's; he didn’t record it until 1955, by which time I was either ending junior year or beginning senior year at Hamilton. It was Cole’s recording that set Autumn Leaves into the pantheon of the American Song Book, since recorded by everybody: Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Evans, Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, Billy Eckstine with Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald  and tons more.

Nat King Cole was a phenom. He was topping the charts in ’44 and ’45 (with whites, just as was Jackie Robinson to erase the color line in baseball) and steadily thereafter. Whatever he brought out, sold out. We danced to and necked to Nature Boy (’48), Mona Lisa (’50), and Too Young (’51.) Are you old enough to remember those?

By the time I got to Hamilton College, fall of ’52, the tail-end of the GI Bill vets were gone a year. But they left a legacy at my fraternity (yes, regretfully, I’m one of those) of revering Edith Piaf and of making an annual pilgrimage to Hickory House to hear Mary Lou Williams or Marian McPartland or Dinah Washington. And, of course, Nat King Cole continued to mesmerize us – and our parents.

So, are you still with me? Since watching autumn leaves literally drift past my window the other morning, the song has popped up again and again: “Alexa, play a Bill Evans track, please:” Autumn Leaves, first up. (I always say please to Alexa and to Co-Pilot; my mother taught me to be polite.) Tuning in to KNKX: Autumn Leaves.

Last night, Ann and I attended Seattle Opera’s Recital Series’ presentation of Patricia Sings Piaf featuring Patricia Racette accompanied by pianist Craig Terry. Ann enjoyed it more than did I: for me, Racette’s operatic voice did not quite catch the anguish of the original. But it was a fine evening – and there again, of course: Autumn Leaves. I suppose it’s inevitable in November, but again and again, there it is: the sad, nostalgic longing triggering sweet memories of my own on this, my 92^nd journey around the sun.

 

PS I was reading this draft aloud to Ann in the kitchen. Alexi, in the adjacent dining area, must have been eavesdropping. She interrupted my reading to dutifully deliver Bill Evans' Autumn Leaves again.