Table of Contents:
Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1929 Jazz Standard)
“Ain’t Misbehavin’” is a 1929 stride jazz/early swing song. Andy Razaf wrote the lyrics to a score by Thomas “Fats” Waller and Harry Brooks for the Broadway musical comedy play Connie’s Hot Chocolates. As a work from 1929 with its copyright renewed, it will enter the American public domain on January 1, 2025.
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Although Ain’t Misbehavin is a standard composed by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks, it was Louis Armstrong who turned it into a universal classic with the premiere of “Keep Shufflin’”, a musical composed by Fat Waller himself and which would end up establishing Armstrong and his “Hot Five” / “Hot Seven” as one of the most important artists of his time.
The song was first performed at the premiere of Connie’s Hot Chocolates in Harlem at Connie’s Inn as an opening song by Paul Bass and Margaret Simms, and repeated later in the musical by Russell Wooding’s Hallelujah Singers. Connie’s Hot Chocolates was transferred to the Hudson Theatre on Broadway during June 1929, where it was renamed to Hot Chocolates and where Louis Armstrong became the orchestra director. The script also required Armstrong to play “Ain’t Misbehavin’” in a trumpet solo, and although this was initially slated only to be a reprise of the opening song, Armstrong’s performance was so well received that the trumpeter was asked to climb out of the orchestra pit and play the piece on stage.
As noted by Thomas Brothers in his book Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism, Armstrong was first taught “Ain’t Misbehavin’” by Waller himself, “wood shedding” it until he could “play all around it”; he cherished it “because it was ‘one of those songs you could cut loose and swing with.’”
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After the good reviews received at the premiere of the musical (in which curiously he did not even appear on stage, but instead played in the pit intended for the musicians), Armstrong decided to take the song to the studio a year later, introducing by course his own personal imprint.
The success was dazzling, but curiously, although more than 20 different versions of the same song were recorded, a year later it had fallen into oblivion. It was not until the mid-1930s when the song was recovered again, through Duke Ellington, in a curious revival that was joined by versions by Jack Teagarden, Django Reinhardt, Paul Whiteman and Jelly Roll Morton, who performed it in the Library of Congress.
But although the song survived the swing and Big Band era, the composition was too classic to sound “new” once the Second World War ended, so even though Dizzy Gillespie recorded his own version in 1952, it did not become a success again until 1978, when Hank Jones premiered on Broadway a Tony-winning musical based on the golden age of jazz and titled “Ain’t Misbehavin.”
Today the song is not part of the majority of modern jazz repertoires, but nevertheless, it remains a composition that must be studied in schools, especially for those interested in mastering the Harlem stride style in which Art Tatum was a master and his version of this song, a true marvel.
Recommended versions
- Fats Waller (1929)
- Duke Ellington (1933)
- Sarah Vaughan-Miles Davis (1950)
- Hank Jones (1978)
Versions in the top charts
| Performers | Recording Date | Entr. Date | Weeks in | Reached position | |
| Louis Armstrong Orchestra | 1929.06.19 | 1929.09.28 | 4 | 7 | Louis Armstrong (voc) |
| Leo Reisman Orchestra | 1929.07.09 | 1929.08.31 | 7 | 2 (one week) | Lew Conrad (voc) |
| Gene Austin | 1929.07.30 | 1929.09.28 | 3 | 9 | Gene Austin (voc), Fats Waller (p) |
| Fats Waller | 1929.08.02 | 1929.11.09 | 1 | 17 | Instrumental |
| Ruth Etting | 1929.08.20 | 1929.10.19 | 1 | 16 | Ruth Etting (voc) |
| Irving Mills Hotsy Topsy Gang | 1929.09.04 | 1929.10.26 | 3 | 8 | Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson (voc, tap) |
| Teddy Wilson Quartet | 1937.08.29 | 1937.10.23 | 3 | 6 | Instrumental |
| Dinah Washington | 1947.11.13 | 1948.03.20 | 1 | 6 | Dinah Washington (voc), Rudy Martin Trio Rhythm & Blues charts |
Jazz oustanding performances
Instrumental
| Performers | Recording date | Assembled Personnel |
| Fats Waller | 1929.08.02 | Fats Waller (p) |
| Teddy Weatherford | 1937.07.20 | Teddy Weatherford (p) |
| Teddy Wilson Quartet | 1937.08.29 | Harry James (tp), Teddy Wilson (p), Red Norvo (xil), John Simmons (b) |
| Bobby Hackett Orchestra | 1939.04.13 | Bobby Hackett (cnt), Sterling Bose, Jack Thompson (tp), Brad Gowans (vtb), George Troup (tb), Pee Wee Russell (cl), Louis Colombo (as), Bernie Billings (ts), Sid Jacob (bars), Dave Bowman (p), Eddie Condon (g), Ernie Caceres (b), Don Carter (d) |
| Art Tatum | 1953.12.29 | Art Tatum (p) |
| Ray Brown | 1960.08.31 | Ray Brown (vc), Don Fagerquist (tp), Harry Betts (tb), John Cave (tpa), Med Flory (as), Bob Cooper (ts), Bill Hood (bars), Paul Horn (fl), Jimmy Rowles (p), Joe Mondragon (b), Dick Shanahan (d), Russ Garcia (dir) |
| Ralph Sutton Trio | 1969.02.11 | Ralph Sutton (p), Al Hall (b), Cliff Leeman (d) |
| Count Basie Orchestra | 1969.10.20 | Count Basie (p, dir), Oscar Blashear, Waymon Reed, Gene Goe, Sonny Cohn (tp), Grover Mitchell, Mel Wanzo, Bill Hughes (tb), Marshall Royal, Bobby Plater (as), Eric Dixon (ts, fl), Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis (ts), Charlie Fowlkes (bars), Freddie Green (g), Norman Keenan (b), Harold Jones (d) |
| Howard Alden & George Van Eps | 1991.??.?? | Howard Alden (g), George Van Eps (g) |
| Joe Pass | 1993.02.04 | Joe Pass (g), Tom Ranier (p), John Pisano (g), Jim Hughart (b), Colin Bailey (d) |
| McCoy Tyner | 2000.06.14 | McCoy Tyner (p) |
| Keith Jarrett Trio | 2001.07.22 | Keith Jarrett (p), Gary Peacock (b), Jack DeJohnette (d) |
Vocal
| Performers | Recording date | Assembled Personnel |
| Louis Armstrong Orchestra | 1929.07.19 | Louis Armstrong (tp, voc), Homer Hobson (tp), Fred Robinson (tb), Jimmy Strong (cl, ts), Bert Curry, Crawford Wethington (as), Carroll Dickerson (vn), Gene Anderson (p, cel), Mancy Carr (bjo), Pete Briggs (tu), Zutty Singleton (d) |
| Irving Mills Hotsy Totsy Gang | 1929.09.13 | Arthur Whetsel, Cootie Williams (tp), Joe Nanton (tb), Barney Bigard (cl, ts), Johnny Hodges (as, ss, cl), Duke Ellington (p), Fred Guy (bjo), Wellman Braud (b), Sonny Greer (d), Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson (voc, tap) |
| Fats Waller & His Rhythm | 1943.01.23 | Fats Waller (p, voc), Benny Carter (tp), Alton Moore (tb), Gene Porter (cl, as), Irving Ashby (g), Slam Stewart (b), Zutty Singleton (d) |
| Louis Armstrong All Stars | 1947.05.17 | Louis Armstrong (tp, voc), Bobby Hackett (cnt), Jack Teagarden (tb), Peanuts Hucko (cl), Dick Cary (p), Bob Haggart (b), Sid Catlett (d) In Town Hall (New York) |
| Dinah Washington | 1947.11.13 | Dinah Washington (voc), Rudy Martin Trio |
| Sarah Vaughan | 1950.05.18 | Sarah Vaughan (voc), George Treadwell (dir), Miles Davis (tp), Bennie Green (tb), Budd Johnson (ts), Tony Scott (cl), Jimmy Jones (p), Freddie Green (g), Billy Taylor Jr. (b), J.C. Heard (d) |
| Billie Holiday | 1955.02.14 | Billie Holiday (voc), Tony Scott (cl, dir), Charlie Shavers (tp), Budd Johnson (ts), Billy Taylor (p), Billy Bauer (g), Leonard Gaskin (b), Cozy Cole (d) |
| Maxine Sullivan All Stars | 1956.08.30 | Maxine Sullivan (voc), Charlie Shavers (tp), Jerome Richardson (as), Buster Bailey (cl), Dick Hyman (p), Milt Hinton or Wendell Marshall (b), Osie Johnson (d) |
| Joe Williams | 1958.10.16 | Joe Williams (voc), Count Basie (p, org), Freddie Green (g), George Duvivier (b) |
| Dave Brubeck Quartet | 1960.08.04 | Paul Desmond (as), Dave Brubeck (p), Gene Wright (b), Joe Morello (d), Jimmy Rushing (voc) |
| Tony Bennett | 1964.03.26 | Tony Bennett (voc), Ralph Sharon (p, dir), Hal Gaylord (b), William Exiner (d) |
| Wllie ‘The Lion’ Smith | 1966.11.08 | Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith (p, voc) |