Flying Home

"Flying Home"
Song by Benny Goodman Sextet
Recorded	November 6, 1939
Genre	Jazz
Composer(s)	Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman
Lyricist(s)	Sid Robin

"Flying Home" is a 32-bar AABA jazz and Jump blues composition most often associated with Lionel Hampton. It was written by Benny Goodman and Hampton with lyrics by Sid Robin.

It was reportedly developed around a tune Hampton whistled as he nervously waited for his first flight on an aircraft. It was first recorded by the Benny Goodman Sextet on November 6, 1939 featuring solos by Hampton and Charlie Christian. Several other groups subsequently recorded the tune; however, the most famous version is a lively 1942 recording by Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra, featuring a tenor sax solo by Illinois Jacquet.Ted Heath (bandleader) does a swinging jump-blues version as well.

Singer Chris Connor recorded a vocal version of the song for Atlantic Records and released it as a single in 1959 (ATL-2017).

Harry James recorded a version in 1965 on his album New Versions Of Down Beat Favorites (MGM E-4265).

Ella Fitzgerald recorded a seven-minute-plus rendering that can be found on the Pablo release Digital III at Montreux (1979), while her 1945 scatting version (arranged by Vic Schoen and performed with Vic Schoen and his Orchestra), included on the Decca release Lullabies of Birdland, was later described by The New York Times as "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade....Where other singers, most notably Louis Armstrong, had tried similar improvisation, no one before Miss Fitzgerald employed the technique with such dazzling inventiveness."

...
Wikipedia