In 1935, Cole and Moss Hart took a round-the-world voyage by ocean liner with their entourages with the intention of writing a new musical. The “jubilee” was that of George V in England. The musical fielded royal characters based on their friends. The show opened to good reviews, but after cast major changes the attendance decreased until it closed seven months later. This was the show that gave young Montgomery Clift his first break.
Tonight is dedicated to one of Cole’s signature tunes. A “beguine” was originally a Christian lay woman of the medieval period living in a religious community without formal vows. But in the creole of the Caribbean, the term came to mean “white woman,” and then was applied to a style of a slow dance.
Rather than write in the standard 32 bar format, Cole wrote this in 108 bars. Each of the five sections runs 16 bars, not eight, and he attaches a 28 bar coda. All that work at Harvard paid off! Alec Wilder: “A maverick, an unprecedented experiment and one which, to this day, after hearing it hundreds of times, I cannot sing or whistle or play from start to finish without the printed music.”
Thanks to its length and complexity, the song gained little popularity at first. In 1938, Artie Shaw recorded a swing version. After signing with RCA Victor, he chose “Begin the Beguine” to be the first of six sides he would record with his new 14-piece band.
RCA characterized it as the long tune as “that nobody could remember from beginning to end anyway.” As a result, it became the flip side to “Indian Love Call.” The identity of the man who turned the record over is lost to history, but thanks to him, “Begin the Beguine” took off, made #3 on the Hit Parade, and skyrocketed Artie and his band to fame. It became one of the most popular songs of the entire Swing Era.