In Your Own Sweet Way

"In Your Own Sweet Way"
Cover of the 2007 CD released on the Avid label, which included a previously unreleased 1958 recording of the song
Song
Published	July 16, 1956 (1956-07-16)
Writer(s)	Iola Brubeck
Composer(s)	Dave Brubeck
Language	English

"In Your Own Sweet Way" is a 1955 jazz standard, and one of the most famous compositions of Dave Brubeck. It was written around 1952, but its copyright notice was dated 1955. Brubeck's wife Iola, for whom the song was written, later wrote a lyric for the song, which led to singers such as Carmen McRae covering it. Although an earlier live recording is known, "In Your Own Sweet Way" was first released on Brubeck's 1956 studio album Brubeck Plays Brubeck.

"In Your Own Sweet Way" is written in the key of B flat major, and is a jazz ballad in thirty-two-bar form with an eight-bar interlude typically played between each chorus. Author of the 1996 biography It's About Time: The Dave Brubeck Story, Fred Hall, said that this jazz standard, like other standards, such as "Take Five," has been performed by "various Brubeck combinations" and many other artists.All Music Guide to Jazz notes the "contrasting lines" of the piece, while a reviewer in a 1994 edition of Jazz Times mentions the versatility of the piece, saying, "[This jazz standard] is in the performer category, i.e., a tune that is extremely adaptable to many styles. One disc jockey sent me a tape of 32 versions of it, and another collector told me he had over 50 versions by various artists." In the booklet of his career retrospective release "Dave Brubeck - Time Signatures" he mentions: "For the first few years the quartet played almost all standards, until one Day Paul Desmond said to me: »We've got to hire somebody to write some material for us.« I said »Paul, are you kidding? I'll write two tunes in half an hour!« I wrote "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Waltz" that night. From then on we started doing my material a lot more."

Although at least one earlier concert recording is known, the song's first release, with three improvised choruses, was on Brubeck's 1956 solo album Brubeck Plays Brubeck. The first quartet version appeared on the 1956 album Dave Brubeck and Jay & Kai at Newport, issued on the Columbia label. An orchestral arrangement of the piece by Howard Brubeck appeared on the quartets live 1963 album Brandenburg Gate: Revisited.