“How Deep Is the Ocean?” (1941) Benny Goodman/Eddie Sauter with Peggy Lee

“How Deep Is the Ocean?”

Composed by Irving Berlin; arranged by Eddie Sauter.

Recorded by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra for Columbia on October 8, 1941 in New York.

Benny Goodman, clarinet, directing: Billy Butterfield, first trumpet; Jimmy Maxwell, Al Davis and Cootie Williams, trumpets; Lou McGarity and Cutty Cutshall, trombones; Lloyd “Skip” Martin, first alto saxophone; Clint Neagley, alto saxophone; Vido Musso and George Berg, tenor saxophones; Chuck Gentry, baritone saxophone; Mel Powell, piano; Tom Morganelli, guitar; Sid Weiss, bass; Ralph Collier, drums. Vocal by Peggy Lee.

The story:

The story of how Norma Deloris Egstrom of Jamestown, North Dakota became Peggy Lee is told in the post here at swingandbeyond.com on her great recording of “Why Don’t You Do Right?” with Benny Goodman. That story and music can be accessed by clicking on the link at endnote 1.

The Goodman band began a summer 1941 tour by making their first stop at the ballroom at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio for a week-long engagement that started on June 14. After that, they bounced around in the Midwest doing a couple weeks of one-nighters, then opened a choice engagement over the July Fourth holiday at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It appears that that gig lasted until at least July 12. Benny appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Robin Hood Dell on July 10, and then with the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium on July 14. The Goodman band then headed for Chicago, where they opened a lengthy engagement at the Panther Room of Hotel Sherman some time late in July. That engagement would last until August 28. It was during this engagement that vocalist Helen Forrest gave notice to BG and was replaced by Peggy Lee.

Benny Goodman and his band in the Panther Room of Hotel Sherman in the summer of 1941. L-R front: Mel Powell, BG, Tom Morganelli, Vido Musso, Clint Neagley, Skip Martin, George Berg, Chuck Gentry; back: John Simmons, Sid Catlett, Jimmy Maxwell, Lou McGarity, Billy Butterfield, Cutty Cutshall, Al Davis and Cootie Williams.

Peggy was nervous and intimidated by the very high level of musicianship and swagger she encountered in the Goodman band. Pianist Mel Powell, also a newcomer to the band, became her musical mentor, and worked with her on the songs she would be singing. Still, she was slow to hit her stride. Nevertheless, the business of the Goodman band continued apace. Within a few days of her joining BG, a recording session was scheduled for August 15. Peggy, who was practically frozen with fear, was assigned to sing the first song to be recorded that day, “Elmer’s Tune.” The sound engineer Bill Savory was in the control room that day. Here are his recollections: “Peggy was extremely nervous, and Benny kept calling take after take, trying to get one that was acceptable. John Hammond (who had flown to Chicago to supervise the date for Columbia) …started hassling Benny about Peggy’s deficiencies: ‘Benny, she cahn’t sing. She just cahn’t sing.’ Finally, out of exasperation, Benny picked up a chair and hurled it across the studio at him. John was amazed and very upset.”(3) Welcome to the band Peggy!

Eventually, Peggy Lee did record an acceptable performance on “Elmer’s Tune.” But it still took her a while after that for her to get enough confidence to perform at the level she knew she could. It seems that Benny’s disagreement with John Hammond over her ability as a singer caused BG to be more supportive and encouraging of her than he otherwise might have been: “I thought she had a terrific quality then. Unfortunately, when she came with the band, she was so scared for about three or four months I don’t think she got half of the songs out of her mouth. She was very young then. But I persisted in any event, which I was glad I did, and so was she, and finally we came up with a couple of hit records.” (4) (Above right: Peggy Lee at about the time she joined Benny Goodman’s band in August of 1941.)

Although the issued Columbia record of Peggy Lee singing “How Deep Is the Ocean” with Benny Goodman’s band was recorded on October 8, 1941, it was far from the first attempt to get that performance right. On September 5, 1941, at least two other takes were made, and on October 8, another two, with the last one finally yielding an acceptable recording. (5)

The music:

“How Deep Is the Ocean?” is a song that was written by Irving Berlin in 1932. It was developed from an earlier Berlin song “To My Mammy,” which was sung by Al Jolson in the film Mammy in 1930. In the earlier song, the lyric includes the rhetorical questions: How deep is the ocean? / How high is the sky? and this was the genesis of the later song “How Deep Is the Ocean?”.

“How Deep Is the Ocean?” is among the few of Berlin’s songs that were introduced on radio rather than on stage or film.

The lyric opens with a question: How much do I love you? and the first answer: I’ll tell you no lie. The rest of the song is a series of questions which leads to the strong suggestion that the ultimate answer is …a lot. (6)

Eddie Sauter’s arrangement of “How Deep Is the Ocean?” begins with an eerie, beautiful introduction that starts with a blending of the low sounds of two trombones (Lou McGarity and Cutty Cutshall) plus a baritone saxophone (Chuck Gentry). There follows an upward series of sounds, first the saxophones, then the softly played open trumpets, then Benny’s clarinet, which takes the music into the first chorus.

The mixture of instrumental voices that Sauter used in the introduction continues as a background for the first 16 bars of Benny’s melody exposition. On the bridge, Sauter employs the reeds and brass in a pointillistic (and syncopated) fashion. The final eight bars of chorus one contain more forceful reed and brass backgrounds.

Eddie Sauter writing an arrangement circa 1940.

This leads to a typically interesting Sauterian modulation into Ms. Lee’s vocal chorus. In the first 16 bars of that chorus, she is backed by warm organ chords from the reeds and brass, and a bit of Benny’s gently fluttering clarinet. Her voice is warmed by the saxophones on the bridge, with a sprinkling of piano notes, courtesy of Mel Powell. Softly played reeds and open brass support the remainder of of Peggy’s vocal chorus.

The finale presents the entire ensemble, with first trumpeter Billy Butterfield’s rich brass sound on top, and then BG’s descending clarinet into the conclusion.

The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.

Notes and links:

(1) Here is a link to the Benny Goodman/Peggy Lee recording of “Why Don’t You Do Right?”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2022/01/25/why-dont-you-do-right-1942-benny-goodman-and-peggy-lee/

(2) Swing, Swing, Swing …The Life and Times of Benny Goodman, by Ross Firestone (1993), 302-303.

(4) Ibid. 302.

(5) Benny Goodman …The Record of a Legend, by D. Russell Connor (1984), 135-137.

(6) The information about the song “How Deep Is the Ocean?” is derived from the Wikipedia post on it.