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"Chinatown, My Chinatown" is a popular song written by William Jerome (w.) and Jean Schwartz (m.) in 1906 and later interpolated into the musical Up and Down Broadway (1910).
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The song has been recorded by numerous artists and is considered an early jazz standard.
Composition
Tin Pan Alley songwriters Jean Schwartz and William Jerome began their partnership in 1901, and collaborated successfully for more than a decade. They composed many popular songs together, including million-sellers "Mister Dooley" and "Bedelia". "Chinatown, My Chinatown" is considered their biggest hit, but it did not catch on when they wrote it in 1906, and the musical revue it was added to in 1910, Up and Down Broadway, was not especially successful. By the time "Chinatown, My Chinatown" became a national hit in 1915, the two were no longer collaborating.
Schwartz incorporated Chinese musical forms into Western music for the melody. The original tempo of the song was slow; later it was adapted to a fox-trot tempo, reflecting the popularity of the dance. Still later, jazz musicians played the song at a "hot jazz" tempo.
Recording history
"Chinatown, My Chinatown" has been recorded by numerous artists. Several recordings in late 1914 presaged its popularity in 1915 when the American Quartet with Billy Murray had a number one record on Victor, and Grace Kerns and John Barnes Wells also had a popular recording on Columbia. The same year, Columbia also released a version by Prince's Orchestra and Sam Ash recorded an abbreviated version of it for the Columbia-affiliated, bargain-priced Little Wonder Records. At least 25 jazz recordings of the song were done between 1928 and 1942; seven were recorded in 1935 alone. Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, and Lionel Hampton were among the many jazz artists who recorded this song in the 1930s. Its recording history is one of the elements that qualifies it as an early jazz standard.
Selected recordings
In other media
The song has often been heard in movies. Woody Allen used "Chinatown, My Chinatown" in Radio Days (1987), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), and Magic in the Moonlight (2014). It has been used in cartoons to underscore the appearance of Chinese characters. The song is also heard in the 2002 third-person shooter game Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.