All the Cats Join In is a song written by Ray Gilbert, Eddie Sauter and Alec Wilder, and first recorded by Benny Goodman.
All the Cats Join In is a song written by Ray Gilbert, Eddie Sauter and Alec Wilder, and first recorded by Benny Goodman. It was a track on an LP with the same title by trumpeter Buck Clayton. Curiously, Goodman recorded this song three times. The third recording was for a segment of the 1946 Walt Disney film Make Mine Music. The original album was subtitled 25 Star Jazzmen in a Buck Clayton Jam Session and was released by Columbia. The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow stated "Everyone plays at least up to their usual high level and the riffing behind some of the solos really generates a lot of excitement”.
Ray Gilbert (September 1912 – March 1976) was an American lyricist. He grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. Gilbert is best remembered for the lyrics to the Oscar-winning song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah from the film Song of the South, which he wrote with Allie Wrubel in 1947. He also wrote American English lyrics for the songs in The Three Caballeros featuring Donald Duck. He also wrote the lyrics for Paul Nero's composition The Hot Canary and athe English lyrics of the Andy Williams' 1965 hit, ...and Roses and Roses. Gilbert also wrote the English lyrics for a number of songs composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim, including Dindi, Amor em Paz (Once I Loved), and Inútil Paisagem (Useless Landscape/If You Never Come to Me).
Edward Ernest Sauter (December 1914 – April 1981) was an American composer and arranger during the swing era. He arranged and composed for Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, and especially Benny Goodman, earning a reputation for intricate work such as Benny Rides Again, Moonlight on the Ganges, and Clarinet a la King. He worked with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz on the album Focus, a collaboration for which Sauter at Getz's commission wrote a suite of string compositions without primary melodies. This allowed Getz to improvise them in his customary style. Sauter and Getz collaborated again during Sauter's work composing the score for the film Mickey One (1965), which starred Warren Beatty. Sauter's television composing includes the third season theme to Rod Serling's Night Gallery. In 2003, Sauter was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame. Although Sauter is best known for jazz, he also orchestrated Broadway musicals such as 1776, The Apple Tree, and It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman.
Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 1907 – December 1980) was an American composer. He was good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and others who helped develop the American popular music canon. Among the popular songs he wrote or co-wrote were I'll Be Around (a hit for the Mills Brothers), While We're Young (recorded by Peggy Lee and many others), Blackberry Winter, and Where Do You Go? (recorded by Sinatra). Wilder occasionally wrote his own lyrics, including for his most famous song I'll Be Around. In addition to writing popular songs, Wilder also composed classical pieces for unique combinations of orchestral instruments. His classical numbers, which often had off-beat, humorous titles (The Hotel Detective Registers), were strongly influenced by jazz. He wrote eleven operas; one of which, Miss Chicken Little (1953), was commissioned for television by CBS. Wilder also arranged a series of Christmas carols for Tubachristmas. Another recording project saw Sinatra conduct the Columbia String Orchestra on Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder, an album of Wilder's classical music (1946). Wilder also contributed two tone poems, Grey and Blue, to the 1956 album, Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Colour. Wilder wrote the definitive book on American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, between 1900–1950 (1972).[1] He also featured on a radio series based on the book broadcast in the middle to late ‘70s.
