“Lullaby of Birdland” is a jazz standard and popular song composed in 1952 by George Shearing with lyrics by George David Weiss, who used the pseudonym B Y Forster to get around the rule which at that time forbade collaboration between ASCAP and BMI composers.
George Shearing wrote “Lullaby of Birdland” in 1952 for Morris Levy, the owner of the New York jazz club Birdland. Levy had gotten in touch with Shearing and explained that he’d started a regular Birdland sponsored disk jockey show, and he wanted Shearing to record a theme which was “to be played every hour on the hour.” Levy originally wanted his own music to be recorded, but Shearing insisted he couldn’t relate very well with it and wanted to compose his own music. They compromised by sharing the rights of the song; the composer’s rights went to Shearing, and the publishing rights went to Levy.
The title refers to the Birdland jazz club, named for Charlie “Bird” Parker. Shearing had started playing at the club, then known as the Clique, in 1949, the same year it was renamed Birdland. He regarded the song highly enough to use it in the title of his autobiography – “Lullaby of Birdland: The Autobiography of George Shearing”. When the owner of the club, Maurice Levy, arranged for radio station WJZ to use it for the broadcast of a regular show he asked Shearing to record a theme song. Not caring for Levy’s choice, Shearer offered to write one. After several futile weeks, Shearer leapt to his feet in the middle of dinner, dashed to the piano and wrote the whole song in 10 minutes. As he said later “… it’s not that I dash something off in ten minutes, it’s ten minutes plus umpteen years in the business.” Weiss added lyrics later and Sarah Vaughan recorded it in December 1954.
“Lullaby of Birdland” is in thirty two bar form, and its original key was F minor (or A♭ major). The song spends an equal amount of time in both minor and major modes. It follows a I – vi – ii7 – V7 harmonic progression and it has a I – viø7 – iiø7 – V7 minor variation.
The original single was issued on MGM 11354 – “Lullaby Of Birdland” (Shearing) by The George Shearing Quintet, recorded July 17, 1952. Lyrics were added later by George David Weiss; the recording by Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown became a hit in 1954. Song contained in “Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown” album in which, in addition to Sarah Vaughan as singer and Clifford Brown as trumpet player, there are also Jimmy Jones at piano, Roy Haynes at drums and Herbie Mann at flute. The song has since been recorded by many vocal and instrumental performers, including Ella Fitzgerald.
