MUSIC CLIP - OSCAR PETERSON, "MOONGLOW"

Welcome to Afterglow, a show of vocal jazz and popular song from the Great American Songbook. I’m your host, Mark Chilla.

Singer Marvin Gaye was unquestionably one of R&B’s biggest stars. But very early in his career, Gaye embraced the music of the American Songbook, and held onto these songs throughout his entire varied career. This hour, we’ll hear Marvin Gaye’s interpretations of jazz standards by Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen and more, stretching from his very first album in 1961 all the way through his final posthumous album.

It’s the Standards by Marvin Gaye, coming up next on Afterglow.

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "WHEN YOUR LOVER HAS GONE"

Marvin Gaye in 1964 from his third studio album for Motown Records titled When I’m Alone I Cry. That was the Einar Aaron Swan song “When Your Lover Has Gone,” a song also performed by Billie Holiday and Ray Charles, and by Frank Sinatra on his 1955 album In The Wee Small Hours.

MUSIC CLIP - KING CURTIS, "I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE"

Mark Chilla here on Afterglow. On this show, we’re looking at jazz standards as performed by soul singer Marvin Gaye. 

You might call Marvin Gaye a reluctant R&B star. He was born in 1939 in Washington D.C., the son of a very strict minister, and he developed a love for singing at an early age. When he was old enough to leave the house, he got involved in doo wop, finding himself under the wing of Harvey Fuqua. Fuqua was one of the founding members of the Moonglows, who had a hit with the song “Sincerely” in 1954.

MUSIC CLIP - THE MOONGLOWS, "SINCERELY"

The original Moonglows had already broken up, and Gaye briefly sang with Fuqua’s “New Moonglows” in the late 1950s, even making a few recordings with them in 1959. 

MUSIC CLIP - HARVEY AND THE MOONGLOWS, "MAMA LOOCHIE"

By 1960, he followed Fuqua to Detroit. It was in Detroit where he met Berry Gordy, his future brother-in-law, and the founder of the newly-formed Motown Records. Gordy was impressed by Gaye’s singing, and signed him to Motown’s subsidiary Tamla. Instead of recording R&B like the rest of the Motown lineup, Gaye insisted on performing jazz in the style of his idol Nat King Cole.

Gordy didn’t seem too keen on the experiment. In his first session, Gaye recorded one song by Berry Gordy, another by Harvey Fuqua, and ten other jazz standards, including ‘How High The Moon,” “Love For Sale,” and “My Funny Valentine.” 

MUSIC CLIP - MARVIN GAYE, "MY FUNNY VALENTINE"

Gaye was his own accompanist on an out of tune piano, with an unidentified rhythm section woefully inept at backing a jazz vocalist.

The album was called The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, masquerading its jazz contents, and it was a tremendous flop. Its only single was ”Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide,” the song that Gordy wrote. However, even in these early recordings, the beauty in Gaye’s tenor voice is evident, so it’s no wonder Gordy wanted to keep him in the Motown family, despite their creative differences.

I’ll play two songs from this early record now, beginning with the Irving Berlin standard “Always,” on Afterglow.

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "ALWAYS"

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "EASY LIVING"

From the 1961 Motown record The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, that was Marvin Gaye performing the Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger standard “Easy Living,” and the Irving Berlin standard “Always.” 

After this very unsuccessful first record for Marvin Gaye, he began to work as a session drummer for Motown, performing on songs with the Miracles and the Marvelettes. At the time, he had no real intention of singing R&B; Gaye felt that his singing future was in the music of the Great American Songbook. But eventually, he started writing his own music, and Berry Gordy convinced the stubborn singer to record an R&B album.

The lead single and title track from Gaye’s next album was “Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” a song that Gaye co-wrote, and a song that embodied his relationship with the Motown executives. 

MUSIC CLIP - MARVIN GAYE, "STUBBORN KIND OF FELLOW"

It became a breakout hit, as did many of the other songs on the album, like “Hitch Hike” and “Pride And Joy.” 

To Berry Gordy, the success of That Stubborn Kinda Fellow was proof that Marvin Gaye should, indeed, be singing R&B. To Gaye, his success was just leverage to convince Gordy to record another record of standards. The 1964 album When I’m Alone I Cry upped the production value, with jazz bonafides like Melba Liston and Ernie Wilkins brought in to do some of the arrangements. 

Gordy tried to make the best of Gaye’s stubbornness by trying to tap into the jazz-pop market on the publishing side. He created a new publishing house for newly-composed tin-pan-alley-type songs, written by his Motown songwriters. He called the company Stein and Van Stock, opting an old-sounding European name. The title song “When I’m Alone I Cry” was the first entry for this publishing company, written by Motown songwriter Mickey Stevenson under the white-sounding pseudonym “Avery Vanderberg.” “When I’m Alone I Cry” never became a pop standard, but another Stein and Van Stock song “For Once In My Life” recorded by Motown’s Stevie Wonder AND Tony Bennett in the 1960s.

MUSIC CLIP - TONY BENNETT, "FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE"

Here’s Marvin Gaye with that other Stein and Van Stock song now. This is “When I’m Alone I Cry,” on Afterglow. 

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "WHEN I'M ALONE I CRY"

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "YOU'VE CHANGED"

Marvin Gaye with “You’ve Changed,” a song performed by Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday on her album Lady In Satin. Before that we heard “When I’m Alone I Cry,” both of those tracks were recorded in 1964 on the Motown record When I’m Alone I Cry.

For the next few years, Marvin Gaye flip-flopped between pop standards and R&B hits: so in late 1964 he recorded an album of all Broadway songs, like “Hello Dolly”…

MUSIC CLIP - MARVIN GAYE, "HELLO DOLLY"

…and two months later he recorded his R&B hits “You’re a Wonderful One” and “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You.”

MUSIC CLIP - MARVIN GAYE, "HOW SWEET IT IS (TO BE LOVED BY YOU)"

In 1965, he recorded more standards for a tribute album to the late Nat King Cole, 

MUSIC CLIP - MARVIN GAYE, "STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT"

…followed soon by his hits “Ain’t That Peculiar” and “I’ll Be Doggone.”

MUSIC CLIP - MARVIN GAYE, "I'LL BE DOGGONE"

His pop standards records did not please his young R&B audience, and were mostly ignored by the older jazz-pop audience. However they did give him enough clout to perform at the famed Copacabana, the same venue that once saw the likes of Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr.

Gaye’s 1966 performance at the Copa was not released until 2005. You’ll hear that even in this performance, the singer could flip effortlessly between jazz crooner and R&B superstar. 

Here’s Marvin Gaye in 1966 live at the Copacabana performing Jerome Kern’s “The Song Is You” followed by his R&B “Ain’t That Peculiar,” on Afterglow

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "THE SONG IS YOU"

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "AIN'T THAT PECULIAR"

Jerome Kern’s “The Song Is You” and Smokey Robinson’s “Ain’t That Peculiar” performed by Marvin Gaye live at the Copacabana in 1966.

We’ll hear more from Marvin Gaye singing jazz standards in just a bit. 

I’m Mark Chilla, and you’re listening to Afterglow

MUSIC CLIP - RAMSEY LEWIS TRIO, "AIN'T THAT PECULIAR"

MUSIC CLIP - RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK, "WHAT'S GOING ON / MERCY MERCY ME (THE ECOLOGY)"

MUSIC CLIP - THE GEORGE BENSON QUARTET, "AIN'T THAT PECULIAR"

Welcome back to Afterglow, I’m Mark Chilla. We’ve been looking at the music of Marvin Gaye this hour, exploring the times when he recorded jazz standards. In the early 1960s, Gaye fought with Motown execs for the right to sing the music from the Great American Songbook, recording standards in between more successful sessions where he created some of the era’s most notable R&B hits. 

Weeks after releasing the song “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” in 1964, a song which would become his highest charting single to date, Gaye recorded an album of mostly Broadway songs for the album Hello Broadway. These were mostly contemporary Broadway songs like “People” from the 1964 show Funny Girl, or “What Kind Of Fool Am I” from the 1962 show Stop The World - I Want To Get Off—song that were usually part of the repertoire of much older artists Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and Billy Eckstine. 

I imagine this was a bit of a compromise from Berry Gordy. The music here was at least more current and commercially viable in the 1960s, at least compared to the songs of Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Even Smokey Robinson and the Miracles sang the Broadway song “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady in 1962 for Motown records.

Here now is Marvin Gaye’s version of that standard now. This is Gay with Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “On The Street Where You Live,” on Afterglow

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE"

From the album Hello Broadway, that was Marvin Gaye with “On The Street Where You Live,” originally from Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady.

Marvin Gaye’s next venture into the Great American Songbook would prove to be his last full-fledged effort supported by a record label. It probably would have never happened, except that in February of 1965, Gaye’s idol Nat King Cole unexpectedly passed away. Gaye’s next album was called A Tribute to the Great Nat King Cole, and featured Gaye’s interpretations of Cole’s most well-known numbers. The singing style was positioned somewhere between his soulful sound he was beginning to cultivate for Motown, and Cole’s jazz-pop crooning that had been established since the 1940s. 

Let’s hear two tracks from that album now. Here’s Marvin Gaye with “Mona Lisa” on Afterglow.

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "MONA LISA"

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "IT'S ONLY A PAPER MOON"

Two songs made famous by Nat King Cole, and performed there by Marvin Gaye on his Nat King Cole Tribute album. We just heard “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and “Mona Lisa.”

After 1965, Gaye’s experiment with the Great American Songbook more or less came to an end. He abandoned the songs of Rodgers and Hart and the Gershwins, to sing the songs of Holland-Dozier-Holland and Ashford and Simpson, a new generation of songwriting teams more in line with Motown’s vision for pop music in America. He did manage to sneak one standard as the final track onto his next album, the Moods of Marvin Gaye.

It’s perhaps his best interpretation of a standard, a perfect blend of Gaye’s bluesy soul with the music of an earlier era. Plus, the song is an appropriate send-off, a way to leave the past in the past. 

Here’s Marvin Gaye in 1966 with Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “One For My Baby (And One More For the Road),” on Afterglow.

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "ONE FOR MY BABY (AND ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD)"

Marvin Gaye in 1966 with Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)”

The 1970s saw Marvin Gaye blossom as an artist. His own songwriting took on more political importance with “What’s Going On” from 1971; he had his biggest hits with “Let’s Get It On” in 1973 and “Sexual Healing” in 1982. But in the background, he was still transfixed by certain songs from the Great American Songbook.

In 1967, Marvin Gaye met up with arranger and producer Bobby Scott to work on another session of all ballads from the Great American Songbook, including “Fly Me To The Moon” and “The Shadow of Your Smile.” He recorded many of these charts in 1968, but was mostly disappointed with the results. When “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” came out that same year and quickly rose to the top of the charts, the sessions were buried. 

MUSIC CLIP - MARVIN GAYE, "I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE"

He finally returned to these charts in 1979, recording them again with a decade’s worth of maturity, only to shelve them again. 

Neither the 1968 nor the 1979 sessions of the ballads saw the light of day until after Marvin Gaye died tragically in 1984. The 1968 sessions found their way onto the posthumous release Romantically Yours from 1985, and the 1979 recordings were released on the posthumous album Vulnerable from 1997. Let’s hear a track from each of those records.

First, here’s Marvin Gaye in 1968 with “Fly Me To The Moon,” on Afterglow.

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "FLY ME TO THE MOON "

MUSIC - MARVIN GAYE, "THIS WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH"

Marvin Gaye in 1979 performing “This Will Make You Laugh,” and before that in 1968 with “Fly Me To The Moon.” Both of those tracks were released posthumously, after he had tragically passed away in 1984.

[Next week on the show, we continue our celebration of African American music appreciation month with a look at another R&B artist who, early in his career, dabbled in the music of the American songbook: Little Stevie Wonder. I hope you’ll tune in.]

And thanks for tuning in to this Marvin Gaye Sings Standards edition of Afterglow.

MUSIC CLIP - STANLEY TURRENTINE, "AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH"

Afterglow is part of the educational mission of Indiana University, and produced by WFIU Public Radio in beautiful Bloomington, Indiana

Playlists for this and other Afterglow programs are available on our website. That’s at indianapublicmedia.org/afterglow.

I’m Mark Chilla, inviting you to tune in next week for our mix of Vocal Jazz and popular song from the Great American Songbook on Afterglow