Chlo-e (Song of the Swamp)

"Chlo-e (Song of the Swamp)" (1927) is a show tune with music by Charles N. Daniels, writing under the pseudonym of "Neil Morét," and lyrics by Gus Kahn. It is now regarded as a jazz standard.

The sheet music of Chlo-e (Song of the Swamp) bears the front cover image of singer Ethel Waters and connects it to the show Africana. This marked the Broadway debut of Waters, and began her rise to stardom. Produced by Earl Dancer and principally written by Donald Heywood, the show opened on July 11, 1927. "Chloe"—to which the title is frequently, and usefully, modified, and is used hereafter—may have been placed in this revue as a later addition to the production. Waters' never recorded Chloe, and it is not listed among the known songs that she sang in Africana. The sheet music was first published in 1927 by Charles N. Daniels' own Villa Morét imprint, based in San Francisco.

In 1934, Heywood re-fashioned Africana into an operetta, but it did not include Chloe or any other external number. It closed after just three performances.

Chloe tells a story. The verse is sung by an omniscient narrator, describing the struggle of a lonely character, conducting a long and determined search for "Chloe" in the "dismal swampland." The searcher then picks up the chorus, with its hook of "I Got to go where you are," declaring that "If you live, I'll find you."

The score is marked "In a tragic way" and while—owing to its narrative opening—it is not necessarily gender-specific, its range and melodic line suggests that it was designed for low voice. Women have sung it also, including Dinah Shore, Valaida Snow and Eva Taylor, who recorded the first female vocal version for Okeh in 1928, followed closely by Bessie Brown for Brunswick. While its topic hearkens back to the milieu of minstrel-type material, the music is uncharacteristically rich, dark hued,expressive and atypical of the Jazz Age, looking forward to the more muted and reflective sound of depression-era songwriting.

The first recording of Chloe was made for Columbia in Los Angeles in September 1927 by singer Douglas Richardson, a vocalist with ties to Charles N. Daniels; it was followed by another Columbia by The Singing Sophomores made in November. The first instrumental recording of Chloe was made by the All-Star Orchestra for Victor, with a vocal chorus by Franklyn Baur, in December 1927. This is identified in the Victor ledgers as "the Fud and Farley Orchestra, directed by Nat Shilkret," indicating the probable participation of Fud Livingston and Max Farley. Shilkret recorded another arrangement of it for Victor with his Rhyth-Melodists in March 1928.

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