"PEnnsylvania 6-5000" is a 1940 swing jazz and pop standard with music by Jerry Gray and lyrics by Carl Sigman. It was recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra as an RCA Bluebird 78 rpm single. According to a TV-interview with John Best, he originally improvised the famous trumpet-solo on the Glenn Miller recording of PEnnsylvania 6-5000, and it is widely emulated ever since, on that tune.
Contents
Glenn Miller recording
Many big band names played in the Hotel Pennsylvania's Cafe Rouge in New York City, including the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The hotel's telephone number, PEnnsylvania 6-5000, inspired the Glenn Miller 1940 Top 5 Billboard hit of the same name, which had a 12-week chart run. The music was written by Jerry Gray and the lyrics by Carl Sigman. The 78 single was RCA Victor Bluebird 78 B-10754-A backed with "Rug Cutter's Swing".
Other recordings
The song became a jazz and big band standard also recorded by the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland and Martha Raye in a duet, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Louise Gold, Kathy Miller, Richard Hunt, and Jerry Nelson (in 1979), Martin Brushane Big Band, the Blue Moon Big Band (in 1999), in a 1976 Carol Burnett Show episode in a tribute to Glenn Miller, Syd Lawrence, Michael Maxwell and His Orchestra, Bobby Benson and the Baby Band in The Muppet Show episode 319 in 1979, Fud Candrix and His Orchestra, Jerry Gray, Mina, Lou Haskins, Jack Livingston, Raquel Rastenni in 1941 in Copenhagen, Starlight Orchestra, Klaus Wunderlich, New 101 Strings Orchestra, Heptet, Meco, Tex Beneke, The Modernaires, Jack Million Band, Al Pierson Big Band, BBC Big Band Orchestra, SWR Big Band, and by Captain Cook und seine singenden Saxophone in 2012.
Fats Waller arranged the song for piano which was published in the UK songbook Francis & Day's Album of Fats Waller: Musical Rhythms in the 1940s.