“Sentimental Journey”
Composed by Les Brown and Ben Homer (music); Bud Green, (lyric); arranged by Ben Homer.
Recorded by Les Brown and His Orchestra for Columbia on November 20, 1944 in New York.
Les Brown, clarinet, directing: Bob Higgins, Carl Berg, Verne Rowe and Randy Brooks, trumpets; Dick Noel, Dick Gould and Clyde “Stumpy” Brown, trombones; George Weidler, first alto saxophone; Mark Douglas, alto saxophone; Ted Nash and Nick Riviello, tenor saxophones; Henry “Butch” Stone, baritone saxophone; Geoff Clarkson, piano; Hy White, guitar; Bob Leininger, bass; Dick Shanahan, drums. Doris Day, vocal.
The story:
The story of “Sentimental Journey” is one that involves a great band, a skillful, perceptive and smart bandleader, a beautiful young woman who could sing well, and perfect timing. The details in the paragraphs below were provided by that bandleader, Les Brown, and that singer, Doris Day, many years after the events they described, to jazz journalist Gene Lees. He gathered them together and wrote a wonderful piece about them in his Jazzletter, which was published in July of 1996. I have cited large tracts of that article below, and have made some minor revisions to it for the purpose of adding some additional information, and to increase clarity. My revisions and additions are in parentheses.
“(Arranger) Ben Homer and I wrote ‘Sentimental Journey’ together,” Les said. “It’s hard to get people to believe that, because in those days bandleaders were putting their names on material they didn’t write — I was offered so many songs. I never would put my name on anything, unless I actually had something to do with (writing) the song. In this case, Ben called me and said, ‘I’m up at (music publisher) Buddy Morris’s office.'” (At right: Les Brown in the mid-1940s.)
The Morris office was in the Brill Building. The building is still there, on Broadway (and West 49th) in midtown Manhattan. Many music publishers had offices there, and it has always had — to me (Gene Lees), anyway — a faint aroma of rancid thoughts. In tribute to the savage insensitivity of its typical inhabitants, the author James T. Maher called it ‘Attila’s last outpost.’
Les said, “I found out later that Homer was trying to get an advance from Buddy. (But) Buddy was too smart. He said, ‘I know you’re a crook. Get in there and write me a tune. You’re not getting any money from me unless you give me a tune.’ Homer told me one time that his philosophy was f… the other guy before he f…s you. I told him, ‘Ben, that’s a terrible way to live.’
“He was going to publishers all over town saying, ‘You can’t get on the air unless you pay me. I’m Les Brown’s arranger, I make the arrangements, I tell him what to do.'”
“I was living at the Whitby when he called. He said, ‘I’ve got a pretty good idea for a tune. Why don’t you come on up and we’ll write it together? I’ve got the front part but I can’t think of a release.’ (At left: The Whitby – 325 West 45th Street – as it appears today.) (1)“I had nothing to do so I went to the Brill Building. I went to the piano and played a variant on the front strain (that Homer had written). In that first version, the cell of the tune, the first two notes drop a sixth. This would increase the range, limiting the number of singers who would be able to handle it. So I pulled this fragment down to a major third, and that repeating pattern is the material of the front strain as the tune finally was published.”
Les continued: “Then Homer said, ‘What’ll we do about the release?’ I said, ‘We’ll do the Sears and Roebuck (changes),’ which is a four chord to a one chord to a two chord to a five chord.” Les played it. “We wrote it in a few minutes. I think I had as much to do with the song as he did.”
“In the meantime, (my) band wasn’t recording. This was during the (musicians’ union recording) ban.” (Probably in late 1943 or early 1944.)
Wreaking further havoc on the American music business in the wake of the 1941 ASCAP-radio strike, James Caesar Petrillo, president of the American Federation of Musicians, had barred all recording by union members starting on August 1, 1942. The dispute was finally settled with the Union getting a royalty on records to be paid (by the record companies) into a Union trust fund. Petrillo’s argument was that recordings were putting musicians out of business, on which point he was absolutely correct (1A), but nothing did more to put the big bands out of business than that strike, which enabled the ascent in popularity of singers as stars, Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee, Perry Como and Nat Cole among them.
Meanwhile, the as-yet unnamed Les Brown-Ben Homer melody was gathering dust in the office of music publisher Buddy Morris. Les said, “Two or three guys wrote lyrics on the tune, but Buddy Morris didn’t like them. Then I got a call from Buddy, who said, ‘I finally got a good lyric. It’s called ‘Sentimental Journey.’ I said, ‘That’s good. Where did you get that?’ He said, ‘I’m reading a book. It’s a Baedeker of the Eighteenth Century called Sentimental Journey, a Guide to the Great Inns of Europe. I got Bud Green to write a lyric.’ Bud Green wrote the lyrics to ‘I’ll Get By’ and ‘Once in a While.’ And also ‘Flat Foot Floogie.’ I went (to Buddy’s office) and heard the lyric and I said, ‘Great.'”
“I (then directed) Ben Homer make an arrangement. I said, ‘Ben, I want this in thirds, clarinet above the subtone tenor lead, clarinets below.’ I’d used that combination in a lot of my own arrangements, and I liked that sound. Ben came in (probably to a rehearsal) and it was . . . . ” Les sang a blatant, loud figure. “I said, ‘Stop the band! I told you what I want. Change the first sixteen bars or we don’t record the thing.'”
Doris Day (2) later remembered: “We were (working) at the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York. We would rehearse after work, when all the people were out of the dining room. That song suddenly appeared. Les handed me the lead sheet. I thought, ‘This is really good.’ “The very next night we had a remote broadcast out of (the Penn) at about 11:30. I sang ‘Sentimental Journey’ and, bang! Right off the bat, I started getting mail about it.” (3)Les then added, “People would come up and ask me about it. It’s a simple song, simple as hell. So we stopped playing it for a while, because we were afraid somebody would steal it before we could record it. (Finally) the recording ban ended in November of 1944, and we went in and recorded it.” Clyde “Stumpy” Brown, who by then was playing trombone in his brother Les’s band, remembered that the band was playing a job in Boston and took a night train to New York to record the song at Liederkranz Hall (1B) the next morning.
“Columbia put it out in January of 1945,” Les said. “It was just after the Battle of the Bulge. When that was won, we knew the war (in Europe) was over. It was perfect timing. If we’d brought it out earlier, I don’t know whether it would have been a hit. Psychologically, it was perfect timing. I’ve had so many GIs come up and say something like, ‘Hey, I was on a boat docking in New York and it was our favorite song, because we were going home.’ It might not have been a hit if it had not been for the record ban, which delayed it until then.”It reached the top of the popularity charts, a hit so big for Day as well as the band that it became almost a theme song for her.
Les parted company with Ben Homer. “When I found out what he was doing, I had to fire him,” Les said. “When his reputation got around, nobody would hire him. And he didn’t have to do that. He wrote so well. I said, ‘You write me one arrangement a week between now and Christmas and I’ll give you a five thousand dollar bonus.’ And that was in the 1940s. He didn’t get close to it. I don’t think that year I got more than ten arrangements. But they were all good. He was an evil man. But by now I had Frank Comstock, and I didn’t need Ben Homer. Frank wrote practically everything for us for a while.”
“Sentimental Journey” made Doris Day a star. And so striking were her looks and her wholesome charm that the movie industry was by the autumn of 1946 beckoning.(4) But that was not the immediate reason she left the band. Les said: “She was getting five hundred a week, through ’44, ’45, and part of ’46. That’s equivalent to five or ten thousand now. She got so far ahead — she wasn’t spending the money — she married one of my saxophone players, George Weidler, and they decided they didn’t want to go on the road any more.(5) I understood that, because I didn’t want to go either, but I had to.” (Above left: A unique snapshot of Doris Day taken by a fan on the morning of Friday October 11, 1946 in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. The night before was her last as Les Brown’s vocalist. The Brown band had played a dance at Lakewood Park, Barnesville, Pennsylvania.)Post script – re: Ben Homer.
Ben Homer was born in Meriden, Connecticut, in 1917. Before working with Les Brown, he wrote arrangements for Teddy Powell and Bob Chester. He joined Brown in late 1940, and worked with Les until early 1944. He then seems to have disappeared from the music business. He became a Jehovah’s Witness, and in 1953 a minister in that movement. He died in Reseda, California in 1975.
Les Brown’s parting thoughts about Ben Homer: “He had attended the Boston Conservatory and he came to me looking for a job. He was very strange to work with. You’d get a chart about every six weeks. But when you got it, it was a gem. Frank Comstock could do six in a week, if you wanted him to. Glenn Osser could make an arrangement in two hours. And a great one, every time. He had perfect pitch. He didn’t have to go to the piano. But I’d say Ben Homer gave us a style.”
The music:
This performance starts with no introduction, just a simple exposition of the main melody by the saxophones, with cup-muted trumpets and open trombones behind them. The entire band begins the secondary bridge melody, then the various sections play. Note that in the mass of brass in this sequence, we hear a clarinet in the sonic mix. I suspect that was played by Les Brown. A modulation follows, at first bright and powerful, then much quieter.
The second chorus belongs to Doris Day, and we can hear what a fine singer she was. She had good voice quality, an excellent sense of pitch and easy swing, and good range. In addition, she had what the French call je ne sais quoi, which means literally “I don’t know what,” but connotatively means a pleasant quality that cannot be named or described. Notice how she subtly adds a bit of spice to the words like a child in wild anticipation…, long to heah that all-aboard. That is what was called “selling the song” during the swing era, and she does it quite well. Also listen for the infinitesimal squeak or rasp that she has in her voice in various places throughout her singing on this recording. It is inexplicably attractive. The contrasting tenor saxophone obbligato behind her singing was played by Ted Nash.
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) Among the tenants of The Whitby during the swing era: Glenn and Helen Miller, Benny Goodman, Bud Freeman, Jimmy McPartland, Harry Goodman, Gene and Ethel Krupa, Toots Mondello (who lived there for sixty years), Les and Claire Brown, Doris Day, Gil Evans, and many more.
(1A) There has always been much dispute over the validity of the position Petrillo took that records were putting musicians out of work. The other side of that issue was that records were promoting bands and the musicians in those bands, generating more work for them.
(1B) Liederkrantz Hall was located in Manhattan on East 58th Street between Park and Lexington
(2) Doris Day (real name: Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff – April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019), was a natural singer and dancer. She was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her dancing career was negatively impacted by an auto collision in which she was involved when she was fifteen years old. During her lengthy convalescence from the injuries she received, she listened to the radio obsessively, often singing along with the singers and bands she heard over the airwaves. She was particularly attracted to the singing of Ella Fitzgerald then. After she recovered, she studied with a teacher in Cincinnati three times a week for eight months, and emerged from that study a technically assured singer. Soon, she was appearing on WLW, Cincinnati’s radio superstation, and began working (in 1939) with local bandleader Barney (Rappaport) Rapp, who changed her name from Kappelhoff to Day. From Rapp’s band she moved on to brief stints with bandleaders Jimmy James, Bob Crosby, and finally in August of 1940, with Les Brown. 
Ms. Day married Al Jorden, a trombonist in the Rapp band in April of 1941. They had a child, Terrence (Terry) Paul Jorden, who was born on February 8, 1942. After the birth of Terry, Ms. Day returned to Cincinnati to escape her abusive husband, and live with her mother, who assisted her with care for her infant son. She picked up a job singing on WLW radio again, simply to retain her singing chops and make a small amount of money. She divorced Jorden in February of 1943. She was away from the Brown band from late spring of 1942 until some time in 1943, when Les persuaded her to come back. When she did that, her mother accompanied her and her son to Manhattan, taking up residence in the Piccadilly Hotel. Mrs. Alma Kappelhoff was a favorite of the sidemen in the Brown band because she enjoyed cooking for them, and they enjoyed her cooking. As was mentioned above, “Sentimental Journey” came into the repertoire of the Brown band probably in late 1943 or early 1944. (Above right: Doris Day and George Weidler on their wedding day – March 30, 1946.)
Ms. Day married Al Jorden, a trombonist in the Rapp band in April of 1941. They had a child, Terrence (Terry) Paul Jorden, who was born on February 8, 1942. After the birth of Terry, Ms. Day returned to Cincinnati to escape her abusive husband, and live with her mother, who assisted her with care for her infant son. She picked up a job singing on WLW radio again, simply to retain her singing chops and make a small amount of money. She divorced Jorden in February of 1943. She was away from the Brown band from late spring of 1942 until some time in 1943, when Les persuaded her to come back. When she did that, her mother accompanied her and her son to Manhattan, taking up residence in the Piccadilly Hotel. Mrs. Alma Kappelhoff was a favorite of the sidemen in the Brown band because she enjoyed cooking for them, and they enjoyed her cooking. As was mentioned above, “Sentimental Journey” came into the repertoire of the Brown band probably in late 1943 or early 1944. (Above right: Doris Day and George Weidler on their wedding day – March 30, 1946.)(3) The Lord discography reports the first known recording of “Sentimental Journey” by Les Brown was made at a World Transcription recording session that took place in New York in the spring of 1944, approximately eight months before the Columbia commercial recording was made. In addition, an aircheck recording of the song was made from an NBC radio show called “For the Record,” emanating from Chicago on October 2, 1944.
(4) Doris Day took a bit of time off after she left the Brown band. But she was busy working by late 1946 on radio, and for her one and only nightclub engagement, a one-month stay at The Little Club in Manhattan in early 1947. By the spring of 1947, she was under personal contract to Hollywood director Michael Curtiz, who facilitated her entry into the movies.
(5) Doris Day, being a beautiful woman and public performer, was pursued by many men. Her way of dealing with that, at least during the time she was a band singer, roughly 1939-1946, was to marry musicians in the bands she was working with. Her first marriage to Al Jorden, a trombonist, which lasted from April 1941 to February 1943, was most unhappy, as he abused her physically and mentally. Her second marriage, to George Weidler, a saxophonist in Les Brown’s band, which took place on March 30, 1946, was equally unhappy basically because her career continued in an upward arc while they were married, while his remained relatively static. They lived together for only a short time. By early 1947, they were permanently separated, and divorced on May 31, 1949.
Excellent analysis of a classic song!