Why this tune?
What do you play when someone asks you to “play us a song?” For me, one of the first tunes I think of is “When Sunny Gets Blue,” a pop ballad by Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal and from 1956 that has become a jazz standard. It’s one of the first songs I learned by heart. Perhaps my long-time attachment to this tune goes back to my teen years, when I heard McCoy Tyner’s recording from the early 1960’s on one of the first jazz records I owned.
Dig this detail!
There are possibly more instrumental recordings of the song than vocal ones, showing the power of Fisher’s melody. The lyrics, though, deserve more attention. Segal crafted a sad story of lost love with plenty of creative images. The second verse is particularly lovely:
When Sunny gets blue She breaths a sigh of sadness Like the wind that stirs the trees Wind that sets the leaves to swaying Like some violin is playing strange and haunting melodies
Hear the story
Check it out!
My version of “When Sunny Gets Blue”
McCoy Tyner, 1963
Nancy Wilson
Oren Levine, jazz pianist and songwriter 