TEN "INVITATIONS"
Bronislaw Kaper's theme for the 1952 film, "Invitation," has become a jazz standard. I invite you to listen to 10 sterling versions that explain why this song is so revered.
In 1950, Hollywood screen composer Bronislaw Kaper was hired to write the score for a Lana Turner film called “A Life of Her Own.” It didn’t do well at the box office and was quickly forgotten. So when the composer was asked to write the score for a 1952 Dorothy McGuire film, “Invitation,” he used the earlier movie’s main theme a second time. This may be the greatest repurposing of a melody in Hollywood history. Once lyricist Paul Francis Webster added lyrics, the melody became a stand-alone song that became an instant classic. I have spent years collecting versions of the song, hoping some day to make a compilation of them the bais of a post. That day has come. Here are ten versions of the song—the first taken from the soundtrack and the second a 1975 piano rendition by the composer himself. From there, we head into mostly jazz realms for eight more recordings.
Bronislaw Kaper, Invitation, 1952 (soundtrack version)
Bronislaw Kaper, Invitation, 1975 (solo piano version)
Les Brown, Invitation, 1953 (released as a single by Coral Records; Ronny Lang is the alto sax soloist; this is an extraordinary version by one of the best big bands of the 1950s)
Billy May, Invitation, 1958 (released on a Billy May album, “Big Fat Brass,” made for Capitol Records; May can be bombastic, but he restrains that tendency here)
The Four Freshmen, Invitation, 1959 (released on “The Four Freshmen and Five Guitars”; this song is ideal for this group)
Art Blakey, Invitation, 1961 (released on Blakey’s one record for the Impulse label, with a band whose front line boasted Lee Morgan, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone and Wayne Shorter, tenor sax. Downbeat gave it 3 1/2 stars and said it lacked fire. They stupidly faulted the album for its emphasis on standards. Shorter sounded so much like Coltrane at this time)
Rosemary Clooney with Nelson Riddle, Invitation, 1963 (this is the finest vocal version I have ever heard; Riddle and Clooney were having a passionate fling while this album was recorded)
Sahib Shihab, Invitation, 1971 (like so many other America jazz musicians, reedman Shihab went to love in Europe and found a better life and more appreciation. Both this version and the one that follow put the song in a bossa nova framework. Francy Boland is on piano and Kenny Clarke, drums))
Dexter Gordon, Invitation, 1975 (Gordon was another jazz expatriate who made fabulous records in Europe; this one was made with an all-star quartet: Philip Catherine, guitar; Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, bass; Billy Higgins, drums)
George Shearing, Invitation, 1979 (Shearing made several piano-guitar-bass trio albums for Germany’s MPS label in the late 1970s. Shearing blends beautifully with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen on bass and Louis Stewart, guitar. Many critics and fans think they are among his finest recordings)