Download Instrumental   Sometimes in your life you have to look back and wonder how you could have been so stupid. While I was stationed at Scott Air Force Base, I played in the dining room of the Officer’s Club two nights a week. There was always this light colonel who would walk by and say “I wanna be around to pick up the pieces” and then amble off to his table. This went on for at least a year. I thought it was some kind of veiled threat, like “What is this staff sergeant doing in here? Don’t we have a lieutenant who can play piano?” I didn’t know he was requesting a song – I’d never heard of it.  It was years later before I heard Tony Bennett croon it on Johnny Carson. What a schmuck I was.  I wish I could find that colonel now. I’d play the song, throw a salute and bark, “Request granted, SIR!”

Sadie Vimmerstedt.  Not exactly a household name, is it?  But she was responsible for one of the best jazz standards ever written.  Seems ol’ Sadie was a beautician in Youngstown, Ohio and extremely upset with Frank Sinatra for leaving his wife to marry Ava Gardner. Really… who cares?  Well, Sadie did.  She was quite pleased when Ava turned around and left Frank, so she decided to send an idea for a song to the famous songwriter Johnny Mercer.  In her letter to Mercer, she included the first line of the tune she wanted him to write:  “I wanna be around to pick up the pieces/when somebody breaks your heart”.  Mercer ran with the idea and soon had a hit song on his hands when Bennett recorded it in 1963.  Being the professional that he was and an all around nice guy, Mercer cut Sadie in on half the royalties.  You just never know, do ya?

I decided to use an arrangement in the style it should be – Big Band.  Notice the trombone solo in the middle and the sax taking it out at the end.  It’s easy to class it up when you’re working with a song this good.  If you’re going to use these backups onstage, make sure you’ve got the chops for it.  It’s not the easiest song to sing.  If you can do it, great!  If not…. don’t even try.