Evolution of a Tune - Survival of the Fittest?

    "Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
                                                                                           from Alice in Wonderland   -  Lewis Carroll

      If you've read the previous blog posts you will recall several Jazz standards that I researched and dissected in order to find some meaning in the music we play all the time and take for granted, and to put the tunes in historical context.  Often I discover that we "dumb-down" the tunes and throw out the important stuff for the sake of convenience or just out of laziness and inattention.    Here are links to these previous posts that will each open in a separate window so you can read those posts without migrating from this one:
Don't get Around Much Anymore
Con Alma  
Stella By starlight
Night Train
As Time Goes By
All The Things You Are

This time I look at Alice in Wonderland by Sammy Fein.  The tune was written for the 1951 animated Disney film by the same name ( 2 months after I was born ) and was a 4/4 slow Foxtrot type of tune, with an 18 bar A-section, only remotely similar to the version that the Jazz players today all use. 
            Here is a YouTube link to the title soundtrack and partial transcription of the version from the original film - 

 

   

      "Be what you would seem to be" or, more simply, 
      "Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."               Alice in Wonderland   - Lewis Carroll

   The standard Jazz version of Alice in Wonderland comes directly from the Bill Evans "Sunday at the Village Vanguard" album, a full 10 years later, in a jazz -3/4 feel, with a truncated A-section to fit into a more standard 16-bar form,  and somewhat different chord progression.   AND, a somewhat different melody.   Now, who says Evolution is JUST a THEORY?   

  Bill Evans, piano    Scot LaFaro, bass    Paul Motian, drums 

From "RealBook #1":

YouTube link to the classic Bill Evans recording "Sunday at the Village Vanguard":

 This album was recorded June 25, 1961.  Scott LaFaro, the bass player, was killed in a car wreck on July 6.

Bill Evans

Paul Motian

Scott LaFaro

Alice

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked."Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
                                                                               Alice in Wonderland   - Lewis Carroll