Take Two

Time Was

Time Was is a sweet, happy, nostalgic song by Bob Russell, Gabriel Luna and Miguel Prado that would have fit nicely into Dorothy Fields and Julian Slade's stage musical Salad Days. The song has a Spanish subtitle of 'Duerme' meaning 'Sleep', or perhaps in this context 'I Dream'?

Time was
When we had fun on the school swings
When we exchanged graduation rings
One lovely yesterday

Time was
When we wrote love letters in the sand
Or lingered over coffee and
Dreaming the time away

The song was recorded by Julie Christie in 1962, but Jimmy Dorsey recorded it long before in 1941. Here it is by Jimmy Dorsey's Orchestra with Bob Eberle and Helen O'Connell singing the lyrics. There is a very nice, uplifting saxophone solo by Jimmy Dorsey towards the end.

Picnics and hay rides
And midwinter sleigh rides
And never apart
Hikes in the country
There's more than one tree
On which I've a place in your heart

Sometimes in jazz a song is unexpectedly picked up another band and a different approach taken with it. Sixteen years after Jimmy Dorsey's recording another sax player, 25 year old John Coltrane, recorded Time Was. Equally happy, Coltrane gets fine support from Red Garland (piano); Paul Chambers (bass) and Albert " Tootie " Heath (drums).

Darling
Every tomorrow will be complete
If all our moments are half as sweet
As all our time was then

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