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What a great tune! My Old Flame was written by Arthur Johnston & Sam Coslow in 1934. I don’t know who all have recorded it, but I do know that it was performed by Mae West in the film, Belle of The Nineties. Since then, I am sure many jazz artists have recorded or performed their own rendition of the song. Demonstrating the many gaps in my musical knowledge and history, I confess that I have never even heard a recording of the tune until I began to try to learn it several months ago.

As I sit here writing this post, I am listening to Billie Holiday’s rendition on the Commodore Record label, recorded in 1944. I deliberately chose not to listen to any previous recordings in order to see how far away from the tune I’d be. I can tell you, hearing Billie Holiday’s performance puts the tune in perspective.

Growing up, I don’t think I ever knew that the tunes I was trying to learn were maybe considered pop music at some point. That means a vocalist was probably involved, and their performance is the first clue as to what a horn player should do with the tune.

Hopefully, you clicked on the link to hear Billie Holiday’s version. Now, here is what I have been doing with the tune, using Jamey Aebersold back jazz tracks.

That’s pretty freaking SQUARE, right? I think I need a new approach for leaning tunes. I’ve been worried about getting the chord changes down when I should have been listening, even if it were another horn player (from before this modern moment) who has a better interpretation than me. What I did happens when you strictly read music from a page. I will try to do better.