Gee, Baby, Ain’t I Good to You (Kenny Burrell’s version)

Kenny Burrell (electric guitar), Major Holley (double bass) and Bill English (drums). From the album Midnight Blue (1963).

Andy Razaf and Don Redman composed this song in 1929 and it was recorded a week after the stock market crash. The public’s tastes inclined towards themes that spoke on the good times and the extravagant expenses. The lyrics of this song, with its commitment to courtship with a new Cadillac, a fur coat and a diamond ring, were especially appropriate for those times. In 1941, Chu Berry and Hot Lips Page recorded it again and in 1943 it was recorded by Nat King Cole and turned it into a best-seller and a jazz standard.

Count Basie never assumed legal ownership of this theme, but it was thought to have arrived from Kansas City. In 1944, Basie recorded it with singer Jimmy Rushing, who would keep it in his repertoire for the rest of his career. Other more progressive jazz musicians played this theme several times in later years and it’s especially suitable for a medium-slow tempo, somewhat faster than a ballad. Two extraordinary versions are those of Cassandra Wilson on her album Blue Skies and Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff on On the Blue Side.

This theme is played by Burrell in a trio with Holley and English, and has a romantic melody. Burrel begins his solo by asking a woman: “For heavens sake, after all the presents I’ve given you, I haven’t been good to you yet?". With his discourse he asks for explanations without becoming aggressive, but occasionally he includes more forceful phrases. Then he plays groups of chords combining them with melodic lines and then re-exposes the theme in a naughty way.